New Delhi, Jan 22 (IANS) Reacting to the Karnataka government’s decision to conduct polls for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) using ballot paper, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla on Thursday said that it has exposed the hypocrisy of the Congress and added that no matter how the elections are held, they will lose.

Speaking to IANS, Shehzad Poonawalla said, “Once again, the ‘Bahana Brigade’ has found an excuse to protect the Parivar. They are now claiming that the BBMP elections will be held using ballot papers instead of EVMs. Whether the election is conducted by ballot or by EVM, the result will be the same, the Congress party will lose. D.K. Suresh brother of D.K. Shivakumar is saying going back to ballot paper is like taking one step backward.”

“This has completely exposed the hypocrisy of the Congress. It was the Congress party that introduced EVMs in Karnataka’s local body elections and later implemented them across the country,” he said.

“The Congress won Kerala local polls on EVMs without Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), following the wins in Karnataka Assembly, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and also Jharkhand.

“At that time EVM use was perfect, today they are finding fault with EVMs. The fault is not with data, fault is with ‘Beta’ but they want to save the ‘Beta’, hence they blame the Data,” he added.

He also commented on the Madras High Court quashing the First Information Report (FIR) against BJP’s Amit Malviya for his remarks against Tamil Nadu Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin in a social media post.

Poonawalla said, “It is very unfortunate that after the High Court passed a stinging order against the DMK government, highlighting its anti-Hindu nature and legacy, and after the hateful speech made by Udhayanidhi Stalin calling for the genocide of Hindus, as well as the abuse of the legal process against our senior leader Amit Malviya, the DMK has chosen a different path.”

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday quashed the FIR registered in 2023 by Tiruchi city police against Amit Malviya for “distorting the comments” made by Udhayanidhi Stalin on Sanatan Dharma. Significantly, Justice S. Srimathy went on to state that what Udhayanidhi had said amounted to “hate speech”.

Poonawalla further slammed the Congress over their protest regarding the changes to MGNREGA by the Centre.

“Congress party shedding tears over MGNREGA? Congress leaders themselves had admitted that MGNREGA was neither a final nor a permanent solution; this was stated by Jairam Ramesh.

“Moreover, the NDA government under Prime Minister Modi has allocated many times more funds to MGNREGA than what the Congress ever did. At that time, even Sharad Pawar and P. Chidambaram had said that states should bear a greater share of the burden so that farmers are not overburdened for accountability,” he said.

“The Congress party is anti-Ram, Village, Developed Bharat, and farmers,” he claimed.

He further reacted on allegations made by the Opposition on the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and said, “When the entire SIR process in Bihar was conducted under the supervision and monitoring of the Supreme Court, and crores of votes were removed through that process, these allegations were made by the entire Opposition, be it Congress, Samajwadi Party, or RJD, but before the court, their BLAs did not submit a single complaint… They provoke people in the name of voter list revision, because revision is just an excuse; the real agenda is to facilitate illegal infiltration and fake entries”

–IANS

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