“EC doesn’t work under Govt, SIR can’t be discussed in this House”: HM
New Delhi, Dec 10:
Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday accused the opposition of spreading falsehoods on SIR and launched a strong defence of the exercise, asking whether democracy can be safe when the prime minister and the chief minister are decided by “ghuspetiye (infiltrators)”.
Intervening in the debate in the Lok Sabha on ‘election reforms’, Shah said the opposition “gets angry when we talk of history, but how can any country or society move forward without history”.
“The first SIR was conducted in 1952, when Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister and Congress was in power. Then it happened in 1957 when Nehru was there, the third happened in 1961 and Nehru was there.
“Then it happened during Lal Bahadur Shastri’s time, then during Indira Gandhi’s time, Rajiv Gandhi’s time, Narasimha Rao’s time, and then in 2002 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s time which continued till Manmohan Singh’s time,” he said.
“No party had opposed this process because it is a process of keeping elections clean and keeping democracy healthy,” Shah said.
He said the objective of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is to remove those who have died, add the names of those who have turned 18 and delete foreign nationals one by one.
“I want to say to the House and people — Can a country’s democracy be safe when the prime minister and the chief minister are decided by ‘ghuspetiye’,” Shah said.
He stressed that Parliament is the biggest panchayat for discussions and the BJP-NDA people never run away from a discussion.
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“We asked for having it later for two reasons — they (opposition) were asking for discussion on SIR and I believe discussion on SIR cannot be held because it comes under the Election Commission,” Shah said.
“When they said we want to discuss election reforms, we agreed immediately. A debate was agreed on electoral reforms, but the majority of opposition members talked of SIR. On this SIR, one-sided falsehoods were being propagated in the last four months and efforts were made to mislead people,” he said.
Blaming the Opposition for creating a ruckus in the Parliament, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday clarified that the Election Commission of India does not work under the Central government, explaining that the issue of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls cannot be discussed in the Parliament as it is the responsibility of the ECI.Amit Shah asked, “If questions are asked about the conduct of the Election Commission, then ‘who will answer it?’. He further said that the government “immediately” accepted the discussion on electoral reforms, as they fall under the government’s purview.”For two days, we told the Opposition that this should be discussed later, after two Sessions. But they didn’t relent. We agreed…Why did we say ‘No’? There were two reasons for the ‘No’. One, they wanted a discussion on SIR. I am very clear that there cannot be a discussion on SIR in this House. SIR is the responsibility of the Election Commission. India’s EC and CEC do not work under the Government. If a discussion is held and questions are raised, who will answer it?” Amit Shah said in the Lok Sabha.”When they said that they are ready to discuss electoral reforms, we agreed immediately,” he added.Amit Shah blamed the Opposition for creating a ruckus in Parliament for the first two days, which sent a message that the government does not want to discuss SIR. Amit Shah countered that Parliament is the “biggest panchayat for discussions” and the BJP-NDA never runs away from it.”There was a logjam for the first two days over discussion on this matter. This sent the wrong message to the people that we do not want to discuss this. I would like to make it clear that the Parliament is the biggest panchayat for discussions in this country. BJP-NDA never runs away from discussions. Whatever be the subject matter, we always stand ready for discussions as per Parliament rules,” Amit Shah said.”For four months, one-sided lies were spread about SIR. Attempts were made to mislead the people of the country,” Shah said.Today is the second day of discussion on electoral reforms in the Lok Sabha. This follows the Opposition’s relentless demand for a debate about SIR, which the government refused to accept. Finally, an agreement was reached between the government and the opposition to have a discussion on electoral reforms after the debate on Vande Mataram.A total of 10 hours has been earmarked for the entire discussion in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.Earlier on Tuesday, addressing the Lower House of Parliament during a discussion on electoral reforms, Rahul Gandhi questioned the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government about the rationale for removing the Chief Justice of India from the committee to select the Chief Election Commissioners and Election Commissioners.He also slammed the Centre for providing immunity to the CEC.Amid uproar by NDA MPs, Rahul Gandhi reiterated his claims of electoral fraud in the Haryana Assembly elections. He said, “The Election of Haryana was stolen. Theft ensured by the Election Commission… The biggest anti-national act you can do is vote-chori. There is no bigger anti-national act than vote-chori because when you destroy the vote, you destroy the fabric of this country. You destroy modern India; you destroy the idea of India. Vote-chori is an anti-national act, and those across the aisle are doing an anti-national act,” he said.He further alleged that the ECI was “captured” by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as part of its project to take over the country’s institutions.
