Bhopal, Nov 8 (IANS) Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Hemant Khandelwal, on Saturday, accused the Congress of misleading people through baseless allegations against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise which is underway in the state since November 4.

BJP leader Khandelwal made this remark responding to Congress’ allegations that the SIR exercise is an attempt to remove voters in Madhya Pradesh.

He said the SIR process is a regular electoral roll exercise at different periods of time to ensure a better democratic structure.

“SIR is a regular exercise and were carried during the Congress governments in the past also. But then, Congress never opposed it. When the same exercise is being done today, they are misleading people,” BJP leader Khandelwal said in a statement.

Responding to Congress’ allegation that SIR exercise is an attempt to remove voters from Madhya Pradesh, Khandelwal said, “This is a self-made assessment of Congress, which is completely baseless to create unnecessary disruption in the SIR exercise.”

The Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Madhya Pradesh Assembly and Congress leader, Umang Singhar, accused the BJP of conspiring to remove around 50,000 eligible voters, especially from tribal populated districts.

Another senior Congress leader Sajjan Singh Verma, who has been appointed as head of a committee of the state Congress to look after the SIR issue in the state, briefing the media earlier in the day said, “More than 1.5 lakh RSS workers have been enrolled for the Block Level Officers (BLOs) job in Madhya Pradesh.”

The Congress leader also claimed that the contact numbers of around 28,000 BLOs were not disclosed in the list provided by the Election Commission (EC).

“Why are the BLOs’ contact numbers not mentioned in the list provided to the Congress party?” Verma asked.

Former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, who also joined the press conference, has alleged differences in the voters’ list being provided to the political parties and presiding officers during the elections.

He demanded that the voter list be frozen immediately after the election dates are announced.

The Election Commission has kick-started the second phase of the SIR process in nine states, including Madhya Pradesh, and three Union Territories from November 4.

The SIR exercise will continue till December 4 for which one BLO has been deployed at each of the 65,014 polling stations across the state, who will go door-to-door with enumeration forms.

Under this initiative, BLOs have been tasked to provide enumeration forms to electors at their doorstep.

The claims and objections will be accepted until January 8, and after all claims are resolved by January 31, the final voter list will be published on February 7.

–IANS

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