Former minister Harsh Dev Singh has said that the BJP is misrepresenting and misinterpreting Representation of Peoples Act (RPA) to justify inclusion of non-local voters in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Singh, a lawyer by profession, claimed that sec-19 RPA Act nowhere states that a person can get registered himself as a voter in IIOJK merely on the ground that he is ordinarily residing there.
Amid a major controversy over inclusion of non-locals in the revised electoral rolls in J&K, the BJP had said that under law anyone who is citizen of India and not barred by any law can choose to be a voter in any area, state or Union Territory where he or she may ordinarily reside.
Asserting that residents of Indian States and UTs cannot be enrolled as voters in J&K, Harsh Dev Singh, who is also an AAP leader, lambasted the BJP for creating confusion over the subject and endorsing the inclusion of outsiders in the voters’ lists of the occupied territory.
“In its desperation to import voters from other states for promoting its political prospects in J&K, the BJP was misinterpreting law and misrepresenting the legal postulations,” he said.—KMS
