PoliticsOpposition
Rahul Gandhi says welfare tied to voter ID will turn the rolls into a political tool
The Leader of the Opposition said a plan to identify scheme beneficiaries by voter card instead of Aadhaar, alongside the SIR, could cost crores their vote and their benefits. He meets Congress state chiefs in Delhi this evening.
Key points
- Rahul Gandhi said scheme benefits would be decided through voter ID and not Aadhaar.
- He called it "theft of rights" and linked it to deletions in the SIR of electoral rolls.
- He meets PCC presidents and CLP leaders in New Delhi on Friday evening.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused the Narendra Modi government of preparing to tie welfare schemes to the voter card, warning that together with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls it could take away both the vote and the benefits of crores of people.
In a post on X, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said a minister had announced that “benefits under government schemes will now be determined through voter ID and not Aadhaar”. He did not name the minister. Read with the SIR, which he said is removing crores of names from the rolls, the move would turn the voter list into a political tool, he said.
“Name deleted, vote lost. Vote lost, rights lost,” he wrote.
‘Theft of rights’
Gandhi called the plan part of a “deep conspiracy” to sway elections and keep the BJP in power. “The preparation is under way for a list in which the BJP will always have a majority,” he said, describing it as “an arrangement to steal elections and establish a permanent mechanism to remain in power”.
He warned that the link would not stop at Panchayati Raj programmes and could reach ration, pensions, MGNREGA, housing, scholarships and reservations. Voting is a constitutional right, he said, and cannot be made a condition for government help. “A poor person’s pension cannot be made a slave of their voter card,” he wrote. “This is not just vote theft; it is theft of rights.”
He again accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of working with the BJP, and said the Congress had exposed what it calls vote theft.
The government has not set out which schemes the announcement covers or how it would work, and no formal guidelines have been issued.
Venugopal’s 13 crore charge
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal took up the same line on X, challenging Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to defend what he alleged was the exclusion of 13 crore people from the welfare net through a “rigged and flawed” revision. He also said the Prime Minister had not taken up Gandhi’s challenge to a debate on the issue.
The BJP has rejected the vote theft charge before. Its leaders say the SIR only cleans the rolls of voters who have died, moved or are registered twice, and that names left out can be added back by filling in a form.
State chiefs called to Delhi
The attack comes hours before Gandhi meets Pradesh Congress Committee presidents and Congress Legislature Party leaders in New Delhi on Friday evening. Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar flew in from Bengaluru for it and said the meeting would last about an hour and a half. The party has not said what is on the agenda.
Shivakumar said he would see no one else in the capital because of Deepavali, though his schedule lists calls on Union ministers. He also said the state had invited the Prime Minister to open the new stretch of Bengaluru Metro’s Pink Line on November 13, and asked what the BJP had to do with the invitation.
The Congress has made the SIR the centre of its campaign against the Election Commission, with a rally at Ramlila Maidan on November 1 and petitions in the Supreme Court. Friday’s welfare charge gives it a new line of attack: that a name struck off the rolls could also cost a poor family its pension and its ration.