Two days after a BJP member was seen telling people that EVMs belonged to ‘his father’, another incident of violation has come up from Madhya Pradesh. A young minor boy was seen voting for the BJP in the state. The child is the son of BJP Panchayat leader, Vinay Mehar, in the state as voting for the Lok Sabha elections took place on May 7th.
The clip had been allegedly posted on the Facebook page of a BJP leader, the video surfaced and was brought to light after it caught the attention of Congress leader Kamal Nath’s media advisor, as per NDTV. The footage showed the father and son duo inside a voting booth, pressing a button on an Electronic Voting Machine which had the lotus symbol, representing the BJP. The video also showed the votes being registered and recorded. The father then says, ‘It’s done, son’, after the button is pressed by the young child.
भाजपा ने चुनाव आयोग को बच्चों का खिलवाड़ बना दिया है। भोपाल में भाजपा के जिला पंचायत सदस्य विनय मेहर ने नाबालिग बेटे से डलवाया वोट। वोट डालते वक्त का विनय मेहर ने वीडियो भी बनाया। वीडियो फेसबुक पर विनय मेहर ने किया पोस्ट।
कोई कार्रवाई होगी? pic.twitter.com/M7kSZUJtCW— Piyush Babele||पीयूष बबेले (@BabelePiyush) May 9, 2024
Piyush Babele, media advisor of former chief minister of MP Kamal Nath, took to X to talk about the issue. The local authorities have reportedly taken note of the video after Babele’s post. As of now, reports suggest that the District Collector Kaushalendra Vikram Singh has greenlit an investigation and one officer, Sandeep Saini has been suspended from duty. Furthermore, an FIR has also been filed against the BJP leader, Vinay Mehar. Officers at the polling booth, including one Manoj Kumar Maurya, Madan Gopal Patel, and CR Bathem have also been reportedly suspended as of now.
This is not the first time the BJP leaders seemed to have circumstances twisted in their favour. Several reports have emerged from Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and Gujarat where BJP leaders, police, or even government officials have been seen preventing Muslims from voting in various ways. In Sambhalpur, several voters were denied their right to vote, their identification cards were torn up, and they were beaten. Similarly, Assam’s Karimganj, which has over 50% Muslim population, saw a BJP MLA threatening the local residents with demolition if they did not vote for BJP. Moreover, forest officials from the area in Karimganj also face charges as of now for reportedly intimidating voters to vote for the BJP in these elections.
Furthermore, the BJP has also been in the news for strange cases in certain constituencies in the country where the opposition leader has defaulted before voting, which would mean that the BJP candidate would win uncontested. One such incident took place in Surat, where all of the opposition candidates withdrew after the Congress party’s candidate’s registration was rejected not once but twice After these events, BJP’s Mukesh Dalal was crowned as winner by the district election officer. After the nomination of two candidates by Congress were rejected one after the other, other parties such as Bahujan Samaj Party, took to withdraw their candidacies. A similar case was reported by Al Jazeera in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, where an independent candidate was reportedly pressured and ‘mentally tortured’ after he gave his candidature. Jitendra Chauhan, a 39 year old artist, was set to contest from Gandhinagar, which is the bastion of the party’s leader, Amit Shah, reportedly even sent his children out of state, worrying for their safety.
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