In this Special Report, the panel debates the controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the alleged suicides of Booth Level Officers (BLOs). The Supreme Court recently observed, 'Can foreigners with Aadhaar card be allowed to vote?', questioning the use of Aadhaar as proof of citizenship for voting. BJP Spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari defends the process, citing TMC threats to BLOs in West Bengal. Congress leader Salman Soz attacks the government, claiming '41 election workers have died in 27 days' due to pressure. Political Analyst Rajat Sethi and Senior Journalist Ashutosh discuss the 'arrogance' of the Election Commission and the disruption in Parliament.
00:01Pradeep Bhandari, you know, while one can, the jury's out on, you know, theatrics on the floor of the parliament,
00:09while drama on the floor of the parliament is one thing, but outside what is happening is entirely another issue
00:15where it comes down to the human cost of what is going on in the form of an SIR process.
00:21I am sure the video of the BLO from Muradabad crying before he took his own life will break your heart to Pradeep Bhandari.
00:30Well, Pradeep, good evening to your viewers and at the outset let me tell you that an investigation has been ordered on that specific case.
00:39But what are the facts of the matter?
00:41The opposition today has become a rent-a-cause opposition which always has an alibi or a issue in order to divert the attention from the mandate of the people
00:51which is time and again telling the Indian opposition that it is engaging in disruptive, negative politics
00:56which the Honorable Prime Minister called as the Muslim League Mawadi Congress.
01:00Just a few months back, the opposition was claiming about vote-chori.
01:03Allow me to make my opening submissions by two observations of the Supreme Court, one of which is quoted by the India Today.
01:09Quote, can foreigners with Aadhaar card be allowed to vote? The Supreme Court asks on the SIR.
01:14Quote, no voter came forward to challenge exclusion despite apprehensions of mass deletions after Bihar SIR.
01:20So, the claim of the Indian opposition in particular Rahul Gandhi was 60 lakh voters have been deleted but not a single voter has come.
01:26Now, please note what is the constitutional process under 324.
01:29It is the election commission which is looking after the process and the Supreme Court is supervising the process.
01:34Yes, I do agree that certain deaths of BLO is definitely a matter of concern because let me tell you what has happened in the last one week.
01:41Trinamool Congress BLA has threatened the BLO that if you remove any Bangladeshi leader named Lovely Khatun, you will be threatened to life.
01:49You have Trinamool Congress MLA Shyamalan Yadav who is publicly threatened to break the hands of the BLO.
01:53You have TMC leader Jameerul Islam Molla who is threatened to kill BLO Deepak Mehta.
01:58So, I believe you have also seen that video and India Today has reported it how we all were shattered seeing the BLO being openly threatened by the Trinamool Congress.
02:05We have seen how TMC leader Mohamed Qasimuddin has beaten up BLO Nivedita Mandal's husband Kamal and threatened to kill him.
02:13Now, on the intention of the government, this is what Mr. Kiran Dijiju has said in the floor of the house at 432 that we are even willing to discuss the SIR.
02:20But nothing gives the opposition the argument to disrupt the parliament where each and every issue is willing to be discussed.
02:27The opposition is disrupting it because it does not have facts on its hand.
02:31Alright, great.
02:32And, you know, we are having a problem with our timer this evening.
02:35So, I would really urge all our panelists to take care of the time that they speak for and, you know, allow each of your panelists to speak.
02:43I could not hear your timer.
02:45I am glad, sir, but you have ended it.
02:48You know, though I do keep my own watch, you know, on a timer, but you have respected the time frame of what you were given.
02:56I would hope your co-panelists will do the same.
02:58I would have brought in Salman Saws into this conversation.
03:01Though, you know, Pradeep Bhandari, the fact is you have every right to go after the opposition on the charge of vote chori or what the opposition says.
03:08But to treat 33 lives right now, and that is what we are counting in terms of BLO suicides on ground, that's not small, sir.
03:16And that needs to be addressed.
03:17I'll come back to you and I want to bring in Salman Saws into this conversation.
03:20Salman Saws, are we staring at another session which is going to be a complete washout?
03:25If day one is to go by, that is exactly what's on the cards.
03:29Because if the government says that the Treasury benches say that they will allow debate, they are willing to talk about SIR, should the opposition not cooperate this time?
03:41Well, Priti, I think the Prime Minister himself set the tone for this Parliament session by, first, he said that the opposition does drama and they should be talking about delivery.
03:55But he actually was doing drama outside Parliament today.
03:59That is drama.
04:00If you really want to deliver, deliver a press conference outside Parliament, then I will see.
04:07If you really want to talk about delivery, you've got to go inside Parliament and say the same things in front of the assembled parliamentarians.
04:17That is...
04:21Salman Saws, there's a problem with your audio.
04:24Yeah, so I was just saying that if he does these things inside Parliament, then I would say this is delivery.
04:30But we know he does a lot of drama.
04:33You know, we saw the footage that you just showed of this, it's very sad, it's heart-rending.
04:41You know, our report is that 41 election workers have died in 27 days for this exercise that a very arrogant election commission, very arrogant election commission, which gives not an inch to the opposition,
04:57not an inch to our supporters, and basically runs every, it runs this entire massive process, wants to do it in just a couple of months.
05:09The arrogance of the election commission flows from the arrogance of the government.
05:12Why?
05:13Because the government chooses the election commission members.
05:16We know that because this government circumvented what the Supreme Court had asked it to do.
05:21We want accountability.
05:24The people of India want accountability.
05:27We want accountability on air pollution in Delhi, for example.
05:31Not just Delhi, across the country.
05:33And what do they do?
05:33They manipulate data.
05:36By the way, this is a...
05:37In Delhi, there were four Indian circles.
05:39Chief Minister, LG, MCD, you know, and of course the Prime Minister.
05:46But they have done nothing but hide data.
05:51On national security, we want debate.
05:53Saman Sars, I'll circle back to you now.
05:55You're one and a half minutes up, and then hopefully we'll get the timer for the second round, so everybody will get equal time.
06:00I thought you said two minutes.
06:01That's why I kept going.
06:02Okay, no, no, because your co-panelist spoke for a minute and a half, so I'm giving you the same on my stopwatch, and I will cut across right now to...
06:09But Preeti, because he doesn't have much to say, he only took one and a half minutes out of two...
06:13Well, sir, I'm sure everyone has a lot to say, even if they don't have much to say.
06:16So, let's, you know, let it rest.
06:19Do not challenge me on that, Mr. Sous.
06:21No, no, no, don't challenge each other.
06:23It's going really well till now.
06:24Everyone's respecting each other.
06:26It's a good way to go about things.
06:28All right, I want to bring in Rajat Sethi and Ashutosh into this debate.
06:31Rajat Sethi, the fact is there is zero trust deficit.
06:34When even the Prime Minister uses language like keep the theatrics outside, drama ke leh bohat or jagay hain, not parliament,
06:41he's also cracking the whip.
06:43You can say that, look at what has happened in the past.
06:46The opposition can say, you've already set the tone.
06:49See, you have to leave some politics to the politicians, Preeti ji.
06:54You know, if all of these statements are wiped out from the political scene, it will become a very boring political theatre.
07:02So, let's leave that aside and focus on what is important.
07:05If the SIR has to be discussed again, you know, repeatedly over the past 10 years or so, we've seen, you know, when Congress has been leading the opposition,
07:14they are the ones who know the rules and regulations much better than any other party.
07:19They are the grand old party of this country.
07:21There are rules and procedures that you have to follow, be it filing complaints against the election or tabling an issue like SIR in the parliament.
07:29My problem is that, why does Congress not follow the rules?
07:32Question hour is not meant for SIR.
07:35There are separate rules which you can invoke to have that discussion and then ghero the government or the election commission or whatever you want to do.
07:42But if you want to, you know, break all the rules just because you believe that you are some kind of a princeling or something like that,
07:49then, you know, somebody is going to crack the whip and then you'll come out crying and weeping and creating tamasha on television channels.
07:54So that should be avoided. Act like a mature party, follow the rules and be more, you know, resilient about how you take up issues.
08:03Take up issues, find people on the ground, try and make a whole, you know, whole degree of seriousness around what is there.
08:11Don't piggyback onto the deaths that is happening because all of these deaths happen due to many, many other factors also.
08:18You need to establish that. There will be FIRs, there will be investigation to clearly lay it out that why is a man or a BLO crumbling under the pressure?
08:27Are there any other factors which are adding to this whole pressure?
08:30And of course, when it comes to pressure, I am 100% of the opinion that the election commission should give more time.
08:36Even for the five states that are going into election, we should allow voter list preparation to go on till at least January end through the SIR process.
08:44Even if the Congress party or the opposition cries out that why is the list being created in towards the very last day of the election, let that be the case.
08:52We should not put pressure on the BLOs, but also the Congress party and the others in the opposition should realize not to create this timing, you know, related issues that they did in Bihar elections.
09:03They were the ones, why did you drag the process till October?
09:06Similar pressure should not be put on the election commission because it all passes down to the BLO.
09:11No, and it is passing down to the BLO because, Rajat, you might say that it's a matter of investigation, but prima facie, 33 deaths, and out of it, which are at least 14 bona fide suicide notes.
09:22You know, there clearly is a lot of pressure on the Booth-level officers, and it is translating into them breaking down, and we've seen enough visuals of that.
09:31And that doesn't compensate by the election commission releasing one happy video of BLO's dancing, you know, that's just the mockery of it.
09:38But we'll come back to that.
09:39I want to bring in Ashutosh into this conversation with what's really happening in Parliament, Ashutosh, because what we are headed towards is, you know, another washout.
09:48And day one has set the tone.
09:51What happened during the monsoon session, what happened during the budget session, it's exactly that.
09:55It's going to be abject waste of public money, your and my money.
09:59Many would say that Parliament is the best place to protest, but ultimately some business needs to get done.
10:04You know, like Salman was saying, I would love to hear a debate on pollution, where it's actually taken seriously by our leaders.
10:13See, Priti, this money debate, I never had given much importance to that, because the Parliament is a Parliament, and whether we give the logic that we are paying so much money from people's pocket, and that's why there should be debate in the Parliament.
10:26That's an absurd debate.
10:27I've never subscribed to that debate.
10:29The issue is that the Prime Minister has successfully controlled his own party.
10:33The Prime Minister does whatever the party, the party does what the Prime Minister wants him to do.
10:40There's no difference of opinion in the party, and nobody dare differ with him.
10:45Now, he wants the similar kind of an opposition, that opposition should listen to him, whatever he says should follow, and if opposition is trying to be defined, then obviously there are issues and that will be done.
10:56And it shows very clearly that in one day, 140 MPs were suspended, never heard in Indian democracy till that date.
11:06So, the issue today is a fundamental issue, that 28 or 32, forget about 28 or 32, when the 10 BLOs had committed suicide or died because of that, should it not be immediately taken up in the Parliament and discussed and debated that why this is happening?
11:24I haven't heard a single word from the BJP, rather there are insinuations that these BLOs are committing suicide for any other factor could be reason for that.
11:38In an earlier debate, somebody who is close to the government has even insinuated that there is a bigger conspiracy, that's why these BLOs are committing suicide.
11:47I think nothing could be more cruel, more heartless than this. BLOs belong to the lowest rung of the bureaucracy. They are poor people. And the picture, the video, which the whole nation has seen today, is a reality, but not a word. Why? Should it not be debated on the floor of the house?
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