Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise being conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) was ‘essential’, as electoral rolls were not perfect.
“Everyone who has participated in elections has known that the electoral rolls are not perfect. There are duplicates, dead voters, and living voters who are not registered. Additionally, there are people who have moved to a new address and have two or three addresses in two or three different booths. All of these things have existed, but if it has happened on a very big scale, then they need to be addressed. I think the election commission’s best approach should be to confront these matters very openly,” Tharoor told ANI.
“It’s in the interest of the election commission’s own credibility that no voter should have any doubt in their minds and hearts about the fairness of the election…Challenges there are, and no one is going to achieve perfection. But we can certainly respond, I hope in a fair manner, to the legitimate concerns and the legitimate questions asked by the opposition,” he further added.
Extending his support to the Centre’s recent reforms to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) structure, Tharoor said the Congress had long advocated for reducing the number of tax slabs, and the current system was a move towards fairness.
“Now I think it’s a much fairer system and we hope it’ll be much better for everyone.”
“We in the Congress party have been asking for this for many years. I think our leaders have been flagging the need to go from four rates to at least just two, or ideally one, one day, because this is actually unfair to people. When you had four rates, it was confusing, it was difficult. People were not happy about this. So now I think it’s a much fairer system and we hope it’ll be much better for everyone…” Tharoor said.
