BJP must sack CEC, says Revanth Reddy

Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Thursday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to capture power through “divisive tactics” and said the BJP should either “sack” CEC Gyanesh Kumar or be “consigned to the dustbin” of political history.

Reddy, who is in Delhi to participate in the protests by Congress and other INDIA bloc parties against SIR, claimed that the BJP wanted to take away the voting rights of the poor who have turned against it.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always wanted to capture power using divisive tactics taken from the imperialist British playbook,” he said in a statement.

According to him, the BJP has tried to divide Indians on the basis of religion, caste, region and language, and also misused central agencies to threaten the opposition and weaken institutions.

“Now that defeat is imminent, the country is being divided into two major camps — those who have the right to vote and those whose vote they want to steal,” he said.

The CM accused the BJP of seeking to “disenfranchise” poor people — the subaltern Dalits, tribals, OBCs and minorities, as they have turned against it.

The CM claimed that it will be the single largest disenfranchisement exercise on planet earth if the BJP took away the votes of 13 crore or more citizens at a time when the country’s population is growing.

He further claimed that a “strange context” was being created in which the total number of voters in the country would decline in the next polls, after it rose in every single election since 1952, including in the three polls after Modi came to power.

However, the people of India would not allow it to happen as it is not just the fight of the Congress or the INDIA bloc but of the country’s future, he said.

Noting that the Congress had ensured India’s independence and that every Indian gained the right to vote, Reddy said if the people’s votes can be illegally taken away, tomorrow all their rights, including reservations and fundamental rights, could also be threatened.

“India will stand for the right of every Indian to vote. No force on earth can stop. Either the BJP sacks CEC Gyanesh Kumar and reverses the SIR exercise and restores the vote of every citizen, or it will be consigned to the dustbin of Indian political history,” the Chief Minister said.

Reddy, who visited the Barakhamba road police station in Delhi on September 7, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was taken following his detention over his sit-in protest, demanded that PM Modi secure the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar.