Bettiah (Bihar) [India], July 13 : BJP leader Sanjay Jaiswal on Sunday criticised RJD's Tejashwi Yadav following his remarks over the claims that Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists for Bihar elections revealed names of people from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar.
Calling Yadav uneducated and irresponsible, Jaiswal urged him to apologise, express regret, and take an oath not to speak beyond what he is taught at home.
Speaking to ANI, BJP leader Jaiswal said, "Only Tejashwi Yadav can make such comments about media personnel or any human being in general. The problem with Tejashwi Yadav is that he is not educated, which is why the people at his home make him memorise whatever they want, and he just repeats it. But if someone asks him a question outside of that, he will create this kind of mess."
He further demanded that the RJD leader offer a public apology. "Tejashwi Yadav should publicly apologise, express regret, and take an oath that he will not say anything beyond what he is taught at home," he said.
The BJP leader's remarks come after Tejashwi Yadav strongly rejected claims that the EC's SIR exercise had revealed the presence of names from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar on the Bihar voter lists.
"Who are these sources? These are the same sources that said that Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore have been captured. 'Ye sootra ko hum mootra samajhte hai' (We consider these sources to be nonsense)," Yadav told ANI.
Yadav emphasised that SIR was last conducted in 2003 under the UPA government, and since then, multiple elections have taken place, including in 2014, 2019, and 2024, where the opposition lost by a margin of three to four lakhs. He questioned whether this implies that foreigners voted for Prime Minister Modi.
"SIR was conducted for the last time in 2003 under the UPA government. Since then, we have seen many elections, including the ones in 2014, 2019, and 2024. In those elections, we lost by three to four lakhs. Does that mean all these foreigners voted for PM Modi?" he added.
Yadav alleged that the NDA is responsible for any dubious elements' names getting added to the voter lists, implying that their electoral victories might be tainted by fraud.
He accused the Election Commission of working as a cell of a political party, calling the SIR process a "complete eyewash".
"This means that the NDA are at fault for any dubious elements' names getting added to the voter lists... That means all the elections they have won have been a fraud... SIR is a complete eyewash. The EC is working as a cell of a political party...," said the RJD leader.
Slamming both the Centre and Nitish Kumar, the RJD leader said that if any 'dubious names' were added in the voter lists, the responsibility lies with the government who has stayed in power since 2005.
"Since 2005, whose government has been in Bihar? NDA's government, BJP, Nitish Kumar's government is there. For 11 years who has been the Union Home Minister, who is the PM for the last 11 years? Modi and Amit Shah. This means that the NDA are at fault for any dubious elements' names getting added to the voter lists. That means all the elections they have won have been a fraud," he said.
Earlier, ECI sources said that a large number of individuals from Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar have been found by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) with Aadhaar cards, domicile certificates and ration cards during house-to-house visits carried out as part of the SIR.
ECI sources indicate that, following a thorough investigation from August 1 to August 30, any names found to be true will be excluded from the final list scheduled for publication on September 30, 2025.
The State will have assembly polls later in the year.
Notably, the BLOs have already digitised and uploaded 4.66 crore Enumeration Forms in ECINet by 6 PM today. ECINet is the newly developed integrated software that has subsumed all the different 40 ECI Apps that had existed earlier.