Kerala BJP leader says party will relocate voters from outside Kerala to target constituencies
Thiruvananthapuram: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Kerala vice-president B Gopalakrishnan has stirred controversy with remarks suggesting that the party will relocate people from other states, including Jammu and Kashmir, to constituencies it seeks to win.
“In constituencies where we intend to win, we will bring people even from Jammu and Kashmir. We will settle them for a year and ensure they participate in the voting process. There is no doubt about it. We will do it again in the future,” Gopalakrishnan was quoted as saying by PTI.
His comments come amid allegations by the Congress of large-scale voter enrolment irregularities in Thrissur ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress has accused Union Minister and Thrissur MP Suresh Gopi of filing a false declaration to be included in the constituency’s electoral roll.
The BJP won its first Lok Sabha seat in Kerala through Gopi, who defeated CPI’s VS Sunilkumar by over 74,600 votes. The Congress, however, has alleged a “suspicious and abnormal surge” of 1,46,656 voters in Thrissur between 2019 and 2024, calling it inconsistent with demographic trends.
Gopalakrishnan has denied charges that the party used fake addresses for voter enrolment. “There may be one or two cases where allegations were raised that the owner was unaware of how outsiders were included in their address,” he told The Hindu, while insisting that no bogus voting took place.
BJP state secretary MT Ramesh also dismissed the accusations, stating that only Thrissur residents were enrolled. He pointed out that voter registration is permitted anywhere in India with valid ID proof, six months’ residence, and neighbor verification. Ramesh alleged that it was the CPI(M) and Congress who were responsible for adding fake votes.
Suresh Gopi, responding to the controversy on August 17, said that queries about voter list manipulation should be addressed to the Election Commission. “I am a minister, and I have fulfilled my duties. Those who must reply will reply. If you have more questions, ask them or wait until the matter comes before the Supreme Court,” he said.
The issue follows Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s August 7 claim that discrepancies were found in over one lakh names in the electoral rolls of Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Bangalore Central constituency. Gandhi alleged that this was proof of collusion between the Election Commission and BJP, a charge the poll panel rejected on August 13 as “false and misleading.”
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2019 mud attack on engineer: Maharashtra court sentences BJP minister Nitesh Rane to one-month jail
Mumbai (PTI): A court in Sindhudurg on Monday convicted Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane in a 2019 case of pouring mud on an NHAI engineer when he was in opposition, and sentenced him to one-month imprisonment, noting that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their hands.
Later, the court suspended Rane's sentence, allowing him time to appeal before a higher court, while acquitting 29 other accused in the case.
"Even though Rane's intention was to raise a voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the people, he was not supposed to humiliate or insult a public servant in public," additional sessions court judge V S Deshmukh stated.
"If such incidents continue to occur, public servants would not be able to discharge their duties with dignity," the judge noted.
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Calling the act "abuse of power", the court held that "it is the demand of time to curb such tendency".
Rane, a son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, was among 30 people charged under various offences, including rioting, assault to deter a public servant, and criminal conspiracy. He was in Congress when the incident occurred.
All the accused, including Nitesh Rane, were acquitted of these offences, as the court found insufficient evidence to support most of these claims.
However, the court found Nitesh Rane guilty of an offence under section 504 (intentional insult meant to provoke a breach of public peace) and sentenced him to one month's jail.
Rane, then a Congress MLA, had called the Sub-Divisional Engineer of the National Highway Authority, Prakash Shedekar, to a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli on July 4, 2019, for inspecting the work to widen the Mumbai-Goa Highway.
According to the prosecution, Nitesh Rane and his followers, frustrated by the poor quality of the roadwork and waterlogging, confronted the engineer. They poured muddy water on Shedekar and forced him to walk through slush in public.
The court, after perusing the evidence on record, noted that the informant (victim) was holding a high post in the National Highway Authority.
"Despite that, he was made to walk through the muddy water in public. It would have certainly humiliated and insulted him," the court remarked.
The judge held that Rane compelling Shedekar to walk through the muddy water "was nothing but an intentional insult to the informant," and provocation which will cause him to break the public peace.
