New Delhi: India on Friday, October 16, rejected US Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal’s remarks questioning the Election Commission’s revision of electoral rolls as unwarranted and uninformed and tantamount to “interfering in the electoral practices of a fellow democracy”.
On Wednesday, Jayapal had voiced concern over reports of the removal of 13 crore voter names from the draft electoral rolls in India.
Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, during his bi-weekly media briefing, when asked about her criticism, said, “We find the remarks of the Congresswoman unwarranted and uninformed and tantamount to interfering in the electoral practices of a fellow democracy.”
“This is an approach that undermines democracy itself,” he said.
Jayapal, in a post on X, had said, “I am deeply concerned about the actions of the Indian government to purge 130 million people from the voting rolls,” making it the first such comment by a US lawmaker on the issue.
She had alleged that the developments in India appear to be a similar playbook to what the Trump Administration is doing in the US to undermine voting rights in a democracy.
Jayapal said protecting democracies everywhere is essential work, and the Indian people—like the American people—deserve free and fair elections.
Her comments had come amid a string of protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and alleged poll irregularities.
According to statistics shared by the Election Commission of India, around 7.2 crore names were deleted from the draft rolls in the first and second phases when the SIR was held in 13 states and union territories.
During the ongoing third phase, where draft lists of 18 states and Union Territories are published, the number of deleted voters stands at 6.16 crore.
The Commission has said that if a genuine voter’s name was inadvertently left out during the SIR process, the voter could seek inclusion through the claims and objections process and subsequently through Form 6.
India’s ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, in a post on X on Thursday, had said, “The remarks by @RepJayapal on India’s electoral and political processes are unacceptable interference in India’s internal affairs”.
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