'Rahul's offer to debate still stands': Tharoor challenges BJP amid SIR row

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday backed Rahul Gandhi's offer to debate the government's allegations in Parliament, saying the House should reconvene as it has not yet been prorogued."Parliament has not yet been prorogued, so let it reconvene.

If Parliament reconvenes, I believe Rahul Gandhi's offer to debate still stands," Tharoor said.

Tharoor also criticised the Election Commissiono ver its handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging procedural irregularities and saying the Supreme Court hearings had supported the Opposition's concerns.Commenting on the ECI's decision to de-link the SIR declaration from Form 6, Tharoor described it as one of the Commission's "most outrageous mistakes".

He alleged that the ECI, under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, had made unauthorised changes to electoral procedures and permitted the bulk filing of Form 7 objections, resulting in people being denied their voting rights."The ordinary public has not fully understood all of these examples of frankly bureaucratic and administrative malfeasance that were conducted by the Election Commission under Gyanesh Kumar.

Some of these things were objected to by the two other Election Commissioners as well. One of them is Form Six, where you suddenly unilaterally change the form, introducing a new declaration which is not authorized under the rules and laws of the country.

..This is what the opposition was complaining about...Under this election commission, bulk filling of Form 7s with thousands of names has been permitted, including in states like West Bengal.

And as a result, on the basis of mere suspicion, a large number of people were denied the right to vote."Tharoor said the Opposition had sought not only Kumar's resignation but also a reversal of decisions taken during the SIR exercise that had allegedly affected eligible voters. He welcomed the ECI's move to roll back some of its decisions but said the consequences of earlier actions also needed to be reversed."But what has been done by the Election Commission now to roll back some of their mistakes, that is one of the things we asked for.

We wanted not just Mr. Gyanesh Kumar's resignation; we wanted very much that the electoral process under the SIR should be reversed, that you should actually end up with these wrong decisions cancelled and their consequences for innocent Indian citizens be reversed...We've had an extraordinary number of 113 million votes cut from the register.

For all of these reasons, what the Election Commission did was wrong; we have been saying it is wrong and the hearings in the Supreme Court are clearly demonstrating step by step that we were right and they were wrong," he said.Tharoor's remarks came amid a political confrontation between the Congress and the BJP over allegations of vote theft and the functioning of the Election Commission.On Thursday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah challenged Rahul Gandhi to debate the allegations in Parliament, urging him to present his arguments in the House rather than take the political battle to the streets. Addressing a rally in Karnal, Haryana, Shah said Gandhi would not be able to handle the government's response."If you (Rahul Gandhi) wish to engage in a responsible discussion—if your concerns hold truth, substance, and logic—then come and discuss them inside Parliament. Let’s face each other head-on! But you won’t be able to handle the answers; as always, you will just run away," Shah said.

Shah's challenge followed Gandhi's call for an open debate with Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day earlier. The Congress leader had claimed he could prove within five minutes that the prime minister was a "deshdrohi" (traitor).Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also urged Modi to answer questions surrounding alleged vote theft. Responding to Gandhi's challenge, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Parliament was already the appropriate forum for such a debate and reminded him of his responsibilities as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.