Hyderabad(Rights Media): The Telangana BJP on Sunday asked AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi to stop resorting to political rhetoric against the Election Commission of India (ECI) and take the legal route if he genuinely possesses evidence of irregularities in the electoral process.
Reacting strongly to Owaisi’s allegations that BJP and Sangh Parivar workers were allegedly filing Form 7 applications to get genuine voters’ names deleted, BJP State Chief Spokesperson and Media In-charge N. V. Subash said a person with a legal background should know that serious allegations against a Constitutional authority cannot be established through public statements alone.
“If Owaisi has concrete evidence of electoral malpractice, what is stopping him from approaching the appropriate judicial forum? Why make allegations in public and stop there? Let him place the evidence before the competent authorities and seek appropriate legal action,” Subash said.
Owaisi had alleged that printed Form 7 applications were being submitted with the names of persons sought to be deleted, while allegedly leaving out the details of those filing the applications. He had urged the ECI, the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer and District Electoral Officers to take note of the issue.
Subash said there was nothing wrong with seeking scrutiny of the functioning of a Constitutional institution in a democracy, but repeatedly casting aspersions on the integrity of the electoral process without producing evidence is a different matter altogether.
“Whenever political fortunes turn against them, the same old vocabulary returns—‘vote chori’, ‘Form 7 misuse’, ‘Samvidhan khatre mein’ and so on. Elections cannot be reduced to a process where everything is acceptable when one wins, but the entire system becomes suspect when one loses,” he said.
He pointed out that the ECI has been conducting elections involving hundreds of millions of voters and continuously updating electoral rolls as new voters become eligible. “If there are genuine discrepancies, identify them, document them and challenge them through the prescribed mechanism. Political allegations cannot substitute for evidence or due process,” Subash said.
He further noted that various challenges concerning the electoral process, including issues relating to Electronic Voting Machines and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), have already reached the judiciary. “If Owaisi has fresh and specific evidence, he is perfectly entitled to place it before the appropriate forum. But merely repeating allegations in press statements does not make them facts,” he said.
The BJP spokesperson said the party would continue to support the identification and removal of ineligible and bogus entries from electoral rolls in accordance with law.
“Every genuine voter must have the right to vote, but an electoral roll must also be protected from ineligible entries. That is not an attack on democracy; it is essential for protecting the credibility of democracy,” Subash asserted.
He added that allegations concerning electoral rolls in Hyderabad, including those raised in the context of the AIMIM’s traditional stronghold, should also be subjected to the same scrutiny and legal process.
“If Owaisi has evidence, let him produce it. If he has a grievance, let him pursue the remedy provided by law. But political rhetoric cannot become a substitute for proof, and allegations cannot be allowed to become electoral facts merely by repetition," Subash said.
