C.T. Ravi to Congress: Book 59,000 BLOs Over 'Vote Chori' or Drop the Charge

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLC C.T. Ravi on Tuesday challenged the Congress government in Karnataka to register cases against the roughly 59,000 booth level officers (BLOs) and their supervisory officials engaged in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, if the party genuinely stands by its allegation of “vote chori” (theft of votes).

Addressing reporters in Mangaluru, Mr. Ravi called the Congress’s demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar an attempt to deflect attention from successive electoral defeats. He said the SIR process is decentralised, with the CEC at the top and BLOs at the bottom, and a large number of supervisory officials drawn from the respective State governments in between. The CEC, he argued, has no direct role in the revision, which he said was being carried out for the ninth time since Independence under the constitutional mandate.

Mr. Ravi said the Election Commission of India (ECI) had amended its rules to make the exercise more transparent, allowing booth level agents (BLAs) appointed by recognised political parties to assist BLOs in the enumeration process. If the Congress’s allegation of “vote chori” were true, he asked, would the agents appointed by the Congress too have aided the alleged theft? Across India there are about 11 lakh BLOs and about 30 lakh BLAs, and he questioned whether the Congress suspected all of these officials and party workers.

Citing figures for Karnataka, he said 15,17,042 voters had been marked as absent, 65,45,849 as shifted, 16,39,864 as dead and 3,83,886 as duplicate, and that the exercise was carried out through enumeration forms. Mere filing of Form No. 7 would not delete a voter, he said, since it is the BLO who has to take the call.

The Congress has alleged irregularities in the revision of electoral rolls and has demanded the CEC’s resignation, charges the BJP rejects. The party’s specific response to Mr. Ravi’s remarks was not immediately available. The SIR is a periodic exercise through which the Election Commission updates the electoral roll, verifying existing entries and removing those of electors who have died, shifted or been recorded more than once. Complaints about deletions are ordinarily examined by the Commission and its designated officials, and political parties can raise objections at the enumeration and claims-and-objections stages.

Separately, Mr. Ravi said the BJP would run a “save democracy, end anarchy and protect constitution” campaign across the country from November 1 to November 30. Road shows, padayatras, dialogues with students, workshops with intellectuals and public outreach programmes would be held during the campaign, which he said was intended to dispel what he described as a myth being propagated by the Congress and its allies on the SIR.

He said the campaign would seek to expose the Congress’s efforts to target constitutional bodies through what he called false propaganda, and would sensitise the public on attempts to “sabotage the people’s mandate”, through which, he said, the National Democratic Alliance has been in power.

Dakshina Kannada MP Captain Brijesh Chowta, MLAs Bhagirathi Murulya and Gurme Suresh Shetty, MLC Kishor Kumar Puttur, and BJP Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district presidents Satish Kumpala and Kuthyar Naveen Shetty were present.