New Delhi [India], October 26 : BJP National Spokesperson and Supreme Court lawyer Jaiveer Shergill alleged a lack of transparency in the All India Congress Committee (AICC) elections, claiming that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor would have been the party president if "fair polling" had been conducted.
Hitting back at Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's allegations on the Election Commission of India (ECI), Shergill said, "Jinke khud ke ghar ki khidkiyan band hoti hain, vo doosron ke parde par nuks nahi nikaalte (Those whose own house windows are closed don't find fault with other people's curtains)."
In an interview with ANI, the BJP leader claimed that AICC election candidate Shashi Tharoor and party leader Manish Tewari were not provided with the voter list.
"Rahul Gandhi has a lot to answer. Jinke khud ke ghar ki khidkiyan band hoti hain, vo doosron ke parde par nuks nahi nikaalte. This is a saying. All India Congress Committee elections happened, and Kharge won. Shashi Tharoor publicly said, 'Where is the voter list?' Manish Tewari came on record and said, 'Make the voter list public'. He said there were 500 odd names that were deleted or added. They (Congress leadership) said, 'No'. We will speak of transparency, but Tharoor, Tewari, you will not get that voter list," the Supreme Court lawyer said on Sunday.
Shergill asked Rahul Gandhi to have transparency in his party's elections before levelling the allegations of "vote theft".
"The Congress Constitution says every three years, the voter list has to be revised. If there were fair elections in the Congress party, Tharoor would have been the president of the Congress party. If Rahul Gandhi is true to his cause, forget other allegations. Do it in your party and answer. Then why didn't the public do the voter list of the AICC? So that is why I said it's not vote theft, it's logic theft," he added.
In August 2022, Tewari shared a post on X to question the transparency in the polling within the party.
"With great respect, Madhusudan Mistry ji, how can there be a fair & free election without a publicly available electoral roll? Essence of a fair & free process is names & addresses of electors must be published on @INCIndia website in a transparent manner," the Congress leader had said in 2022.
Further, Jaiveer Shergill accused Congress of promoting abuse against the Prime Minister. Calling Congress' politics "provocative," the BJP leader claimed that the people who showed black flags to former PM Manmohan Singh were connected to Congress.
"Why does your politics demand to be that provocative? Extreme left ideology, the individuals who showed black flags to Dr. Manmohan Singh, when as a prime minister he visited JNU, are the relatives of the Congress party. It is an extreme left club," he said.
Former PM Singh was shown black flags as a mark of protest against UPA government policies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in 2005.
He added that promotion in Congress depends on the level of abuse hurled at PM Modi.
"Your promotion is dependent on how many harsh abuses, how many strong words you can use against the prime minister? You see, please scan the promotions within the Congress," he said.
These remarks come in the backdrop of a purported video showing a person hurling abuses at the Prime Minister during an Opposition rally in Bihar, which sparked a political row in the State, with the BJP holding a Bihar Bandh on September 4.
Bihar is set to hold Assembly elections in two phases on November 6 and 11. The results will be declared on November 14.