The Biju Janta Dal (BJD) of former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday joined the Opposition chorus on fake voters in the Rajya Sabha along with the Trinamool Congress after their demand for a discussion on the alleged manipulation of electoral rolls was turned down.
The BJD and Trinamool members walked out of the Rajya Sabha and were joined by other parties in the Opposition benches.
At a BJD parliamentary party meeting after last year’s Lok Sabha polls, where the BJD failed to win any seats in Odisha, Patnaik had advised the party’s Rajya Sabha MPs to play the role of a strong and vibrant Opposition in the Parliament.
In the first two terms of Narendra Modi, the BJD had offered “issue-based support” to the BJP under Patnaik’s famous “equal distance” from the ruling party and the Opposition bloc line.
The BJD has in the past not only supported the BJP in Parliament on key bills and issues, it also helped railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw get elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2019 and 2024.
Now, it seems to be onboard with the Opposition that is raising the issue of what it calls a widespread electoral fraud in the voter lists.
Later on Tuesday evening, a 10-member delegation of Trinamool MPs from Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha led by Derek O’Brien and Kalyan Banerjee will meet chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to voice concerns on the discrepancies in the electoral rolls.
BJP state president and MP Sukanta Majumdar, Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya, BJP national coordinator (Election Commission) and co-observer for Bengal Amit Malviya will meet the central poll panel officials at 4.30pm.
The BJD had on Monday given a notice under Rule 267 calling for stopping business of the House and discussing the issue being raised, in this case the electoral rolls.
“We have seen electoral photo identity cards were issued with the same alphanumeric code to multiple voters in Bengal and other states like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and others,” said Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Shekhar Roy.
“Our leader Mamata Banerjee had exposed the fraud some days ago. On the floor of the Parliament we wanted to know how this could happen. India has never seen something like this before,” Roy added.
During an organisational meeting at Kolkata’s Netaji Indoor stadium, the Bengal chief minister and Trinamool chief had accused the BJP of manipulating the electoral rolls in Bengal by replacing them with voters from Hindi speaking states with the blessings of the Election Commission of India.
The poll panel said the issue of duplicate Electoral Photo Id Cards or EPIC was a “decades-old issue”.
On Monday Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Rajya Sabha’s Opposition Leader Mallikarjun Kharge had demanded a discussion on the issue.
“The BJP wants to control the polling system and the EC has turned into a mute witness. The EC was forced to admit that there were irregularities. We want them to tell us how many such voters are there with the same alphanumeric code. This is a conspiracy planned by the BJP to bring voters from other states in non-BJP ruled states and compromise the polling system,” Roy said.