AICC leader Rajesh Kumar Sethi Jain urges the BJP to join Congress to ensure electoral transparency and protect voter rights in Nagaland.
DIMAPUR — The All India Congress Committee (AICC) Minority Department National Coordinator Rajesh Kumar Sethi Jain stated on September 29 that the Nagaland BJP should address questions on electoral transparency rather than lecturing the Congress.
Sethi stated that the Congress is not opposed to clean electoral rolls, genuine voters, or a credible election process but stands against any exercise that may lead to genuine citizens losing their voting rights without adequate transparency, notice, verification, and an effective opportunity to appeal.
Addressing the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Nagaland, Sethi pointed out that the exercise provides a formal mechanism for claims and objections from September 20 to October 20 with provisions for Forms 6, 7, and 8.
He asserted that the party is within its democratic right to question how many genuine voters have been left out, how many names were proposed for deletion, how many objections were filed, accepted, or rejected, and what safeguards exist against disenfranchisement.
While acknowledging that duplicate, proxy, and ineligible entries should be eliminated, Sethi stated that removing ineligible entries and accidentally excluding genuine citizens are entirely different matters, stressing that every genuine voter must have the right to challenge exclusions.
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Referring to the Supreme Court's April 2024 ruling on EVMs, Sethi noted that while the court rejected demands for paper ballots and 100 per cent VVPAT verification, it introduced a mechanism permitting verification of the burnt memory and microcontroller of 5 per cent of EVMs per assembly segment at the request of eligible candidates. He stated that quoting the judgement to claim that no questions can be raised about electoral processes is an overstatement.
On the functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI), Sethi remarked that reported objections or queries raised by election commissioners prior to key decisions cannot simply be brushed aside, asserting that placing records and decision-making processes transparently before the public would strengthen the commission.
He also challenged the Nagaland BJP to join the Congress in demanding complete transparency in the SIR process, protection of genuine voters from wrongful deletion, publication of claims and disposal data, transparent booth-level verification, strict adherence to EVM and VVPAT safeguards, and independent examination of documented allegations of electoral irregularities.