In the cacophony of an election campaign, the removal of nearly 30 lakh duplicate voters by the Election Commission from the electoral rolls of Madhya Pradesh can get lost in the din. Not so in Obedullahganj, where former Union Minister Suresh Pachouri makes sure that Congress party workers remember this.
He ensures they remember that in Bhojpur alone, more than 20,000 bogus voters were removed from the rolls — nearly as much as the margin of victory posted by his rival, Surendra Patwa.
‘EC did needful’
“I didn’t say anything then, but now that the EC has done the needful, we need to be careful about our voters and the fair exercise of voting,” Mr. Pachouri said at a meeting of party workers in Obeduallahgunj.
The Congress had even gone to court to make the electoral rolls more readable on the EC’s website via a software conversion. The case was lost, but the EC’s exercise in weeding out duplicate voters was successful, something Mr. Pachouri hopes will work in his favour.
Mr. Pachouri, who has been a four-time Rajya Sabha member, is hoping to post his first electoral victory after nearly four decades in politics.
His campaign and his opponent best encapsulate the current election from the Congress’s perspective.
Mr. Patwa, son of former Chief Minister and BJP stalwart Sunderlal Patwa, has been mentioned in cases relating to wilful defaults on loans.
The Congress is hoping that local anti-incumbency against a decade-and-a-half old system will do the trick this time around. “I don’t want any worker from Obeduallahganj to waste time trying to find out the position in other Blocks. Restrict yourself to the areas assigned to you and get everyone to the polling booth,” he added.
The Congress’s biggest-selling point in these polls is, however, the farm loan waiver the party has promised within 10 days of being elected.
“Unlike the BJP, whose policies are flawed and which do not know how to get work done from officials, you very well know that we deliver,” Mr. Pachouri declared to some cheering by the crowd, pointedly referring to his stint as a Union Minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
First-ever?
With duplicate voters weeded out and an opponent with some serious issues to contend with, Mr. Pachouri is hoping to post his first-ever electoral victory this poll season.
