Kollam, 26 September (H.S.): BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar rejected suggestions of a rift within his party over the “monthly payment” controversy, saying V Muraleedharan had already explained the matter.

“Do not try to create a controversy in our party,” Chandrasekhar told reporters in Kollam. He accused the Congress and the CPI(M) of trying to stir up a dispute but did not elaborate on Muraleedharan’s remarks.

Chandrasekhar then turned to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. He alleged that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and the party’s leaders in the state held different views on the exercise. Gandhi, who had earlier said Pinarayi Vijayan should go to jail, had recently made a presentation on the subject, he said.

The BJP leader dismissed the Congress’s claim that the SIR was being used to defeat it in elections. He argued that voters were rejecting the party because of corruption and stalled development, rather than the revision of electoral rolls.

Chandrasekhar defended the SIR as an exercise intended to protect democracy. He accused Gandhi of making misleading statements for years and called him a “fraud”.

He also rejected the suggestion that differing opinions within the Election Commission amounted to an institutional failure. If three people discuss a matter, they can arrive at different views, he said, describing such differences as part of a democratic process.

There was no basis, Chandrasekhar argued, for pointing to those differences as evidence of a problem within the commission. He said disagreement during deliberations should not, by itself, be treated as proof that the institution was failing.

His remarks addressed two separate disputes: the political exchanges surrounding the monthly payment controversy and the parties’ competing claims about the electoral roll revision. Chandrasekhar maintained that neither criticism of his party nor differences of opinion among election commissioners supported the conclusions being drawn by the BJP’s opponents.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Arun Lakshman