India
pti-PTI
Keralam Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Friday strongly condemned the alleged remarks made by BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and rejected his claims on the controversy related to CEC.
Kerala CM V D Satheesan condemned BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar for allegedly making abusive remarks against Rahul Gandhi and defending the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, calling the accusations baseless.
In a post on X, Satheesan said personal and abusive remarks against Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, did not constitute political criticism.
“Making personal and abusive remarks against Shri Rahul Gandhi Ji, India’s Leader of the Opposition, does not constitute political criticism. It is the language of a party that has no answers for its own failures,” he said.
Satheesan also criticised the BJP leader over his response to differences of opinion within the Election Commission of India and the controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
“Portraying differences of opinion within the Election Commission as routine, while rejecting any scrutiny of the SIR process, only exposes the double standards of the BJP,” he said. “Keralam wholeheartedly rejects these baseless allegations against Shri Rahul Gandhi Ji and the Indian National Congress,” Satheesan added.
Earlier in the day, Chandrasekhar called Congress leader Rahul Gandhi the “biggest fraud”. Responding to media queries in Kollam on the controversies surrounding the EC, Chandrasekhar said, “I am telling with complete responsibility that Rahul Gandhi is the biggest fraud.”
He accused Gandhi of offering different explanations for the Congress party’s electoral defeats between 2014 and 2024. “First, he said it was because of EVM rigging. Then he said it was manipulation of electoral rolls.
Now he is saying it is because of SIR,” the BJP leader said. Chandrasekhar alleged that people were defeating the Congress due to “corruption, appeasement politics, developmental stagnation and lack of employment”.
He also said the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was intended to protect democracy. Chandrasekhar also claimed that reports of differences of opinion within the Election Commission do not indicate any wrongdoing, asserting that such differences were part of the democratic process.
“When three persons are part of a panel, whether it is a panchayat, municipal committee, political organisation or a committee of three judges, won’t there be different opinions and legal interpretations,” Chandrasekhar asked.
“Just pointing this out and building a theory that something has happened here has no substance. If there is a discussion on it, there should be facts and substance,” he said. Chandrasekhar said there could be a debate on improving the SIR procedure and making it more foolproof.
“But that debate must be meaningful and fact-led,” he said Later in the day, Chandrasekhar made a fresh post on X, saying, “I stand corrected.” “Rahul Gandhi is not Indian politics’ greatest creative fabricator. @RahulGandhi is India’s biggest fraud. Every decision by @ECISVEEP abt #SIR was a unanimous one,” he said in the post.
