Jagan blames SIR for defeat of Mamata Banerjee, Stalin

Amaravati: Expressing concern over the large-scale deletion of votes during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy blamed the exercise for the defeat of leaders like Mamata Banerjee and MK Stalin in their respective Assembly segments in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

With SIR set to be undertaken in Andhra Pradesh, the YSR Congress Party leader cautioned party leaders to remain alert.

Addressing YSRCP leaders at the party’s central office at Tadepalli, he said several political parties across the country had raised fears over large-scale deletion of votes allegedly impacting election results in states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

He claimed that even the removal of a small number of genuine votes in every village could significantly affect constituency-level outcomes.

Jagan Mohan Reddy said that in West Bengal, 91 lakh votes were deleted, while in Tamil Nadu, 94 lakh votes were removed during SIR.

He said in the Bhabanipur constituency in West Bengal, 45,982 votes were deleted during SIR, and Mamata Banerjee lost the election by 15,000 votes.

Similarly, in the Kolathur constituency in Tamil Nadu, 71,000 voters were removed. He pointed out that Stalin lost the election by 8,000 votes.

He urged the party cadres to closely monitor bogus and duplicate votes linked to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Citing Kuppam, represented by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, as an example, he said there were thousands of suspicious votes with repeated names and identical family details in the voter lists.

Accusing the Chandrababu Naidu-led coalition government in Andhra Pradesh of betraying public trust and failing to fulfil its election promises, Jagan Mohan Reddy announced a statewide protest campaign from June 4 to June 12 under the title “Two years of backstabbing”.

He asked party cadre to carefully scrutinise electoral rolls, identify fake votes and strengthen the party at the grassroots level by taking the “Two years of backstabbing” booklet to every household and creating awareness on the government’s failures and false promises.

Jagan said the protests would begin on June 4 at mandal centres across Andhra Pradesh. During the programmes, party leaders and workers will display Chandrababu Naidu’s election manifesto, guarantees and bonds given to people during the elections, and burn their copies as a mark of protest against the betrayal of public faith. He directed party in-charges to actively participate in the agitation at the mandal level.

As part of the campaign, YSRCP will also organise town hall meetings at constituency headquarters on either June 8 or June 9. Farmers, women, youth and representatives from various sections of society will participate in discussions on the two years of anti-people governance, broken promises and administrative failures under the coalition government.

The final phase of the agitation will be held on June 12 with large-scale rallies in all constituency centres across the state.

Jagan Mohan Reddy said the programmes are aimed at exposing the government’s failure to improve people’s living standards despite making several promises before elections. The former CM added that he would personally monitor the conduct of the protest programmes across the state.

The YSRCP chief also asked party leaders to prepare strongly for the upcoming local body elections.

Referring to recent local body by-elections, he stated that the ruling coalition had misused official machinery and police to intimidate YSRCP leaders and workers. Despite such pressures, he said the party should treat the local body elections as prestigious and stand united against the ruling party’s conspiracies.

IANS