- 14 hours ago
On Faceoff with Rajdeep Sardesai, Congress national spokesperson Amitabh Dubey and BJP national spokesperson Dr Syed Zafar Islam debate the ongoing protests against the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Dubey argues that the protests represent a national issue against attacks on democratic institutions, stating that 'due process is being denied' to the opposition and questioning exclusions from draft electoral rolls. Syed Zafar Islam counters that the exercise is designed to remove bogus and ghost voters to ensure clean rolls, asserting that the opposition is avoiding meeting the Chief Election Commissioner and relying on street optics instead. The discussion also examines questions surrounding the deportation of illegal immigrants and the transparent publication of exclusion figures.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Okay, let me first go to my face-off then today.
00:04Is Rahul Gandhi getting under the BJP skin?
00:07Is Gyanesh Kumar actually becoming a liability for the BJP?
00:11Or is this SIR protest now more about optics than any substance?
00:16Joining me on my face-off today, Amitabh Dubey is a national spokesperson of the Congress
00:21and Dr. Syed Zafar Islam is former MP and national spokesperson of the BJP.
00:26Good to have both of you on the show today.
00:29Amitabh Dubey, to you first.
00:32I'm still trying to understand what the Congress's strategy is
00:36to actually get Gyanesh Kumar to resign if that is your endgame.
00:41Do you really believe that these street protests as they are going on
00:45will lead to a constitutional functionary stepping down?
00:49Well, let me first tell you that this is not just the Congress party.
00:54Our vote-chori campaign now has broad-paced national support.
00:57When we are on the streets, a lot of people are supporting us, including in government,
01:01outside of government, inside the election commission.
01:04And what are we doing?
01:05We want to exercise our constitutional right to march to the CEC's office,
01:09to go to Jantar Mantar.
01:11And what are we met with?
01:12Brute force.
01:13I was there.
01:14The amount of force that was put on us was completely out of proportion of what the activity,
01:19the satyagraha peaceful activity that we were engaged in.
01:22Today, of course, the government has wised up and realised that the optics of attacking someone,
01:27going to Rajghat, may not be ideal.
01:29But their basic approach is absolutely clear.
01:32Now, I want to remind your viewers that while the Congress party vote-chori campaign has
01:37been going on for a couple of years, it is the revelations inside the election commission
01:42itself that have given a boost to widespread suspicion about what is going on.
01:46The Supreme Court has questions about this, saying that the Form 6 modifications were not
01:52approved by them.
01:53So there are some...
01:54This is not just a Congress party issue.
01:56It's not just an India alliance issue.
01:57This is a national issue and the national institutions are very concerned about what is going on.
02:02So when the Modi Shah police attacks us...
02:04But if I may say so, you're saying...
02:06No, no, Mr. Dubey, you're saying that this is not just a Congress issue, but I'm looking
02:11at the visuals, particularly today, it's only really Congress leaders dominating the show.
02:16I mean, all eyes are on Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Badra.
02:19Where are the citizens?
02:19I don't see this to...
02:20This hasn't become a citizens movement, not as yet, at least not on the streets of Delhi.
02:25Unlike the Anna movement, where citizens, middle class citizens got involved.
02:31No.
02:32So firstly, it's not just a Congress party.
02:34It's the India bloc that has been involved in this.
02:36Many very senior India bloc leaders have been marching with us.
02:39But I repeat, just because you don't have the citizens on the street yet, let's see
02:44what happens on the 10th of October, doesn't mean that this is not something of great
02:47concern to all of India.
02:49This is a direct attack on the institutions of India, on the election commission, and it
02:54is part of a larger strategy of the RSS BJP, as we've been saying for a long time.
02:59Now, what is coming in front of us?
03:0123,000 CAPF have been deployed to Delhi, according to news reports, to deal with protests.
03:07So what we are seeing is, instead of listening to us, instead of accommodating the very serious
03:14questions that the entire country has, the government is using the jackpot.
03:18And this is the only language they know, because they're afraid, because they know that this
03:22entire structure they have built is now under serious questions, not just by political parties,
03:26but by the Supreme Court and within the election commission.
03:31Let me bring in Syed Zafar Islam on that.
03:34Syed Zafar Islam, are you using the jackpot?
03:37Are you using coercive methods to try and ensure that this protest is crushed sooner than later?
03:43My original question, is Rahul Gandhi getting under the skin of the BJP with these daily protests
03:48of his?
03:53Not at all.
03:54In fact, there is absolutely no support Rahul Gandhi is getting from the common man on the street.
04:01We all know that he is playing politics, he is actually fighting for the bogus voters, the ghost voters.
04:09They do not want the verification of all the voter lists and all the bona fide citizens should be
04:15part of the electoral roll, because this initiative of SIR exercise has been undertaken
04:22by the election commission, but earlier it was very strongly advocated by none other than
04:27the Manu Singh V of Congress Party. They wanted that voter list to be verified, should be verified
04:33and all the ghost voters, bogus voters, people who are dead should be removed from the voters list,
04:38active voter list and should be cleaned. And only the bona fide citizens should be the part of the electoral
04:44roll.
04:44Sir, but there is a difference with due regard, sir. Sir, with due regard, there is a...
04:47Sir, I don't think any... Sir, Zafar Islam Baid, sir, no one disagrees with your point that the voter lists
04:53have to be cleaned up. But it's the architecture and the execution of them. When such high numbers
05:00of people find their names left out of the draft rolls, then questions are obviously going to be
05:06raised. So it is the manner. Nobody is saying don't clean up the rolls, but the way it's being done,
05:11the speed with which it has been attempted to be done before elections in Bihar and Bengal, the large number
05:17of people there who found themselves off the rolls, many of whom have gone in appeal. So you cannot,
05:23let's not mislead the audience. Nobody is against clean up. The manner in which the clean up has taken
05:28place leaves room for suspicion. Let me respond to that. As far as election commission is concerned,
05:37the conduct and the activities of election commission has to be responded by the spokesperson
05:46of election commission. But let me respond to the question you posed just now. First of all,
05:51if they have any observation, if they have any concern about the conduct or the process or the
05:59structure of the SIR exercise being conducted by the election commission, they should go and meet.
06:06The election commission is always ready and available to meet the representative of the
06:11political parties to discuss all the concerns they have and give them satisfactory response.
06:17But Rahul Gandhi is up to something else. He is not interested in a meeting and resolving those
06:26issues. If at all there are issues which need to be resolved by Rahul Gandhi or the concerns Rahul Gandhi
06:32has. But SIR exercise has been undertaken only to clean up the voter list. Secondly,
06:40did you hear anything, anything from the Congress parties, even though they are responsible for,
06:45like bogus voters in the electoral list, they are responsible. Likewise,
06:49Ration Card, more than five crores of names have been removed. And the people who have never born in
06:57the world, in this world, have been part of the Ration Card, their five crores people have been removed.
07:03Their names have been removed. Nobody said anything from the Congress party. Why? Because they know that
07:09the bogus names were actually included by them. Likewise, in Aadhaar Card, more than 4.88 crores
07:16people, their Aadhaar Card was absolutely bogus because those people never given birth by anyone,
07:24but their names were there. So they never made any hue and cry about this. Why have an electoral role?
07:31Because they know that exactly that these are the people, bogus voters, have actually helped them
07:37to be in the power. But people of India understand that when the society is being in the country,
07:46Zafar Islam, I have heard you patiently. I have heard you patiently.
07:51Ten more seconds. They will go to, they will seek appointment with the CEC. Are they taking,
07:57seeking appointment with the CEC? They want to be on the street. They want to do Dharna,
08:02on the, on Janpath. They want to do Dharna and Akashwani. They want to get out CEC. Is this the
08:08way
08:08to resolve the issues? No. They want, they want some violence. Okay. I have heard you.
08:15Mr. Zafar Islam, I have heard you. This is not a monologue, sir. I have heard you. I have heard
08:22you.
08:22You are now. Yeah, you, you, I heard you patiently. Amitabh Dubey, the point that Zafar Islam is making
08:28is that the Congress doesn't really want an appointment he claims with the CEC. You want street protests and the
08:34optics.
08:35Sir, sir, sir, I interrupted him. Please do not, you will have to also, Zafar Islam, be a little patient.
08:42He, he listened to you patiently. Amitabh Dubey, the fact is that according to the BJP, you don't want
08:49an appointment with the CEC or resolve the issue. You want the optics, the eyeballs. This is not about
08:54a substantive issue, according to the BJP. This is about grabbing eyeballs. How do you respond?
09:00So, firstly, Mr. Zafar Islam went through a laundry list of facts. I just want to remind him that
09:05the rationalization of ration cuts began in the UPA. Aadhaar came out in the UPA. So, you know,
09:10let's not try and throw random facts that are unrelated to the issue at large. The BJP keeps
09:15talking about Ghuspatia infiltrators, right? So, if this is against infiltrators, why is it
09:20that nine out of ten appeals so far have been resolved in favor of the person who was excluded?
09:26So, this is clearly a completely unrelated to Ghuspatia. This is genuine voters who in West Bengal,
09:31I'm talking about West Bengal, have been excluded because their narrative is about West Bengal.
09:35I also want to remind, not only have nine out of ten voters been restored so far,
09:40that during the UPA between 2005 and 2013, the number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants deported
09:47legally, not illegally, was 88,792. Under the BJP, it has been a fraction of that amount. So,
09:56they play the politics of Ghuspatia, but when it comes to actual illegal immigration,
10:01they do nothing or they do these illegal pushbacks which just end up hurting us because then it
10:06backfires on us and these people come back. The fact is that this has nothing to do with Ghuspatia,
10:10this is just an excuse they're making. About the going to the due process, I want to remind you that
10:17Jairam Ramesh went to the courts on the appointment of EC issue, and the government changed the law
10:23thereafter. Modi Shah changed the law. Randeep Surjewala went on the Haryana issue in February 25
10:28to the election commission. He was given the runaround, nothing happened. All of the revelations
10:34that have come out of the West Bengal process have been done by Congress MPs going through due process,
10:42our researchers, Prashanjit Bose, going through due process, the PCC chief, former PCC chief,
10:47Aadhir Randan Choudhury going through due process, even the TMC has been going through due process. And all
10:53the criticism that came out from the Supreme Court of the West Bengal SIR, which has been completely
10:59illegally carried out SIR, came out because we went through due process and we got nowhere. So,
11:06I want to make the point that we are going to do this because due process is being denied to
11:10us.
11:12Okay, you are saying due process is being denied to you. Final word therefore then, Zafar Islam. You know,
11:19there is a question I am asking for several days now to many BJP leaders who come on the show.
11:24Why doesn't
11:25the government of India, the Home Ministry, release the figures of the numbers of Guspetya? You go on
11:31saying illegal immigrants have been removed through this exercise. Please show it to me. I have been sending RTI
11:36after RTI, Ashok Upadhyay from our channel. Let me respond to that. He says details cannot be provided.
11:41Please tell me how many Guspetyas are there? Doodh ka doodh paani ka paani hojai. Let me respond.
11:50Let me respond to Mr. Rajdeep Sahasai. This SIR exercise, let it complete all over the country.
11:57It helps to detect, identify who are the bogus voters, illegal citizens of this country.
12:03The election commission cannot release those lists. They can only submit to the Home Ministry.
12:09Home Ministry will initiate the process. We have asked the Home Ministry. We have asked the Home
12:15Ministry under the Foreigners Act. We have asked the Home Ministry.
12:21How many people are there? What stops you? That's why I said let the exercise, SIR exercise be
12:25completely over of all the states. What stops the Home Ministry from telling the people of the country?
12:30How many Guspetyas are there? What is stopping you? Rajdeep, you are not listening to me. Show some patience
12:35as you were showing to Mr. No, no. Show some patience as you were showing to other spokesperson.
12:40I'll show you. All I'm saying, let the SIR exercise be over. Let all the names to come,
12:46the list should come to Home Ministry. Home, the detected people should be identified. People
12:51will be deported. The process will initiate. It is a process which needs to be followed. It is not
12:58arbitrary process where you can just send those people out of the country. There's a process the
13:04country has to follow certain procedures and process that is being followed. Let me also tell you one
13:09thing. Rahul Gandhi. SIR exercise Mr. Zafar Islam has been on for one year and more started. Sir, SIR
13:18SIR exercise Mr. Zafar Islam started in Bihar in July last year. We are now in October. Why can the
13:24government of India not tell me how many? Let me ask you, has the exercise been completed? What did I
13:29say? Let it complete. Yes, you are saying that this will be given? Let it be complete, Rajdeep. Okay.
13:35Then you can question me. You will have the complete list of illegal citizens living in this country
13:41and they need to be, they need, they have been detected. I will hold you to that. They need to
13:45be deported
13:45and you will have the list. You can show it on your screen. But yes, of course you can hold
13:50me to that. Okay.
13:51I will leave it there. I will leave it there, sir. All this protest does not resonate with,
13:57resonate with the common citizen of the country. Rahul Gandhi's turn will backfire on them.
14:05Okay. I've heard you. I've heard Amitabh Dubey. I've heard you. You're saying it will backfire.
14:10According to Amitabh Dubey, the Congress party is doing this because they believe
14:15that this is due process is not being followed by the election commission. Appreciate
14:20both of you joining me here on the show today.