Guwahati: Accusing the ruling BJP of manipulating the electoral process ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections, the Assam Congress on Friday alleged that the party was trying to cling to power through unfair means.
The opposition party claimed that the BJP was attempting to influence the voter list by using “tenant voters” and by deliberately removing the names of genuine voters.
Addressing a press conference, state Mahila Congress president Mira Borthakur alleged that the BJP was indulging in “vote chori” and deleting the names of anti-BJP voters from electoral rolls. She cited instances of what she termed “wrongful exclusion” of names from the voters’ list in the Biswanath Assembly constituency.
“The government’s report card is so poor that the BJP is now trying to use the Election Commission to retain power,” Borthakur said.
She further alleged that the saffron party was attempting to replicate the Bihar–Haryana model in Assam by forming a government with the help of “tenant voters”.
Borthakur also claimed that many BJP leaders and workers, dissatisfied with what she described as oppression and corruption under Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, were in constant touch with the Congress and were willing to join the party.
Reiterating the accusation that the BJP had hatched a conspiracy to delete voters’ names, she claimed that more than 70 eligible electors had been struck off the rolls at polling station number 133 in the Kumalia area of Biswanath by falsely declaring them as deceased.
She alleged the involvement of a BJP leader and a supporter in this purported attempt to remove the names of living voters from the list.
Borthakur also pointed out that a majority of the people whose names were shown as dead were Muslim citizens.
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“Many of them have been exercising their voting rights for years, and several are even young voters around 30 years of age,” the state Mahila Congress chief added.
