B Mishra / New Delhi
The Lok Sabha has taken up discussion on election reforms. Initiating the discussion, Manish Tewari of Congress said, the Election Commission should table the reasons for carrying out SIR. He said, SIR is ongoing in many states in the country, but the Election Commission has no legal justification to hold SIR.
Mr Tewari claimed that the Constitution does not provide for Special Intensive Revision SIR of Electoral Rolls. He said it was a provision given to the Election Commission. Mr Tewari also suggested that either VVPAT should be counted in full or the country should revert to paper ballots. He suggested that Leader of Opposition, Rajya Sabha and Chief Justice of India should be added to the committee to choose the Election Commission.
Sanjay Jaiswal of BJP said that the Opposition is raising the issue of SIR to distract people from their heavy losses in the recently concluded Bihar elections. He said, the first instance of vote-chori happened in 1947 when the whole of Congress Working Committee was with Sardar Patel, yet he was not made the Prime Minister. He said, 1975 Emergency and 1987 Kashmir elections are examples of vote chori of Congress party.