Rahul Gandhi calls SIR a ‘conspiracy’, alleges voter deletions could deny people welfare benefits

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has criticised Union minister Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh's recent statement that beneficiaries of government welfare schemes would be identified not through Aadhaar cards but through the metric and EPIC numbers on voter ID cards.

Gandhi alleged that the statement showed that "the SIR is a conspiracy" to deny people opposed to the BJP both their voting rights and access to government schemes.

"Under the guise of SIR, millions of names are being struck off voter lists... Name struck, vote gone. Vote gone, rights gone. And just like that, you'll become invisible citizens of a hijacked democracy, where the people don't elect the government, the government selects its people. Today, Panchayati Raj schemes. Tomorrow, rations? Pensions? MGNREGA? Housing? Scholarships? Reservations? This isn't politics to win elections, it's an arrangement to steal elections and a permanent setup to cling to power," Gandhi said in a social media post, sharing the minister's statement.


Alleging that the names of those opposed to the BJP were being removed through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Gandhi said voter lists should be in the hands of an impartial Election Commission.

"But now they're in the hands of Modi government employee Gyanesh Kumar, whose collusion with the BJP in vote theft we've caught red-handed with evidence."