00:00I want to quickly cut across right now to Mr. Rizwan Arshad, he's a minister in the Karnataka cabinet.
00:06Mr. Arshad, thank you for joining us.
00:08I just want to quickly ask you, you have the chief minister who's now sitting on an indefinite dharna outside
00:15the chief election officer's office.
00:18You have been given assurances that there will be proper action, yet the dharna continues.
00:26Why, Mr. Arshad?
00:28See, this is a very clear-cut case of racially profiling voters and submitting bulk form 7s to disenfranchise a
00:40particular section of voters like Dalits, backward classes and minorities, and especially Muslim and Christian minorities.
00:47And bulk printed forms have been submitted.
00:50Not only bulk printed forms, every single BJP worker who has submitted these bulk forms have got access to the
00:59information.
01:00How did these BJP workers got the epic numbers of all the voters?
01:05How did they get addresses of all the voters?
01:08How did they manage to get other information of all the voters when this information was only with the election
01:16commission?
01:17And all the printed forms have been filed in bulk.
01:21Who printed these forms from them?
01:23It has come from only one source.
01:25A single source is printing forms and giving it to BJP workers.
01:28Our thing was, this is happening from last 10-12 days in Karnataka state.
01:32These printed forms have reached the election commission.
01:36They should have taken Suomoto action.
01:38Till now there is no action.
01:40So, Mr. Arshad, to simplify it for our viewers, what Mr. D.K. Shiv Kumar is asking and now refusing
01:48to budge because he is sitting on a dharna outside the chief election officer's office,
01:52is that the election commission itself initiate criminal proceedings wherever electoral offences were formed or wherever election offences took place
02:05or allegations of it.
02:07That's the demand?
02:08Of course.
02:08Of course, yes.
02:10It is the duty of the election commission when they have got the evidence that bulk forms have been filed
02:16by unknown individuals on unknown voters.
02:19who have no whatsoever connection, who don't know them, who these voters are, what are they up to.
02:25When there was an SIR process, my chief minister is asking a very clear question.
02:29When there was an SIR process for four months, we asked our school teachers, deprived our children in school.
02:36The government teachers went in thousands of numbers to each and every house.
02:41But Mr. Arshad…
02:44Fair point, Mr. Arshad, you have allegations you want answers to, the chief election officer did tell the chief minister
02:50that he wants two days' time to actually study the material and then maybe move ahead.
02:55You are holding him to ransom with the dharna.
02:57No, certainly not.
02:59It is not the question of studying the material.
03:02It is in their domain from last 12 to 15 days.
03:06He also accepts that it is there and it is wrong and the law doesn't allow this, but still they
03:13are doing.
03:13Here the question is, why are you not taking action?
03:16Now, after sitting half a day on dharna in the leadership of Mr. D.K. Shukumar, now the election commissioner
03:24decided that they are going to direct all the electoral officers who received these bulk forms to file police complaints.
03:31Why this delay?
03:33Why do you want us to come and agitate to safeguard people's work?
03:37So, Mr. Arshad, you called off the dharna for now?
03:39Of course, they need to now file police complaints.
03:43Okay.
03:44Let the law take its own course.
03:45We are not here to hold anybody ransom.
03:48Here, the election commission itself is erasing the trust they had in, people had in them.
03:56Because Mr. Ganesh Kumar and the way they are running this whole system, it is only to benefit one political
04:02party that is BJP.
04:03For now, the chief minister has had his way, it seems to be.
04:09That's the news that we are getting in and the dharna has called off.
04:11Thank you, Mr. Arshad, for joining us.
