BJP to question legitimacy of Keralam Assembly amid Congress protest against CEC

Thiruvananthapuram: BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday said the party will question the legitimacy of the Congress-led government in Keralam in the upcoming Assembly session, following Congress leaders' remarks questioning the validity of elections over the SIR exercise.

The Congress-led Opposition is staging protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging malpractice in the revision of electoral rolls.

Chandrasekhar in a post on 'X', said the party would raise the issue in the Assembly, which is scheduled to meet from October 12.


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"Our Legislative Party Leader Gopakumar is going to write a letter to the Speaker," he said.

"What is the legitimacy of this Assembly? Is this an illegal Assembly or a legal one," Chandrasekhar asked.

BJP has three MLAs in the 140-member state assembly following the election held in April this year after the SIR in Keralam.

"The first thing to be discussed in the Assembly, which affects me, V Muraleedharan, Gopakumar (All BJP legislators) and 137 MLAs, is whether all of us are illegal," he said.

Chandrasekhar demanded that Chief Minister V D Satheesan clarify the issue on the floor of the House.

"If it is illegal, he should resign," the BJP leader said.

Meanwhile, KPCC president and Electricity Minister Sunny Joseph dismissed the BJP's stand, saying it was coming up with "lame excuses."

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Joseph said he had filed petitions in the Kerala High Court and later in the Supreme Court over the electoral process and obtained directions.

He also said Congress leaders had repeatedly raised their concerns about SIR at meetings convened by the electoral officer in charge of the assembly elections in Keralam.

"As the KPCC president, I myself filed petitions in the Kerala High Court and later in the Supreme Court, obtained directions, and spoke multiple times in all the meetings convened by the Electoral Officer who was in charge of the election at that time. We were the ones who had complaints," he said.

Joseph said he had attended the meetings and raised concerns over the electoral process, while questioning whether the BJP or the CPI(M) had raised similar complaints.

He said the Election Commission's approach should be to ensure that eligible citizens were included in the electoral rolls rather than focus on deleting names.

"The stand taken by the Election Commission regarding a voter should be aimed at making the vote available to a citizen. It shouldn't be about rejecting votes, but about including votes," he said.

Joseph alleged that concerns over the SIR process had also been raised at the national level, citing media reports of disagreements within the Election Commission over certain decisions.

Responding to a question on the BJP winning three seats in the Assembly election, Joseph said the party had won constituencies previously held by the ruling front and had also defeated candidates of both the CPI(M)-led front and the UDF.

The election in Keralam was largely peaceful, he said.

Asked about the objective behind the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) questioning the validity of the elections, Joseph said the group would have to explain its position.

CPI(M) leader P Rajeev, meanwhile, said unusual variations in voter numbers had been reported in several constituencies and called for closer scrutiny of their possible impact on the election results in Keralam.

"In some constituencies, the votes have increased unusually. In other constituencies, the votes have decreased significantly. Therefore, the issue that this was not a normal pattern has been raised," he said.

He alleged that the SIR exercise has been used to advance the BJP's political interests and called for a united effort to ensure a transparent and democratic electoral process.

Rajeev also said that some parties in the INDIA bloc have called for a return to paper ballots, adding that concerns about the electoral process are being discussed at the national level.