Ahead of the repolling which is scheduled to take place in seven polling booths in Kerala on May 19 for the Lok Sabha Elections, MV Jayarajan, the CPI(M) Kannur district secretary made a controversial statement that women wearing purdah amd not taking off their face veil should not be allowed to cast their vote.
Speaking at a function in Kannur on Saturday, Jayarajan said that people wearing purdah should not be allowed to vote.
“They have to remove the face veil from the moment they stand in the queue inorder for the CCTV cameras and the web cameras to identify the voter and capture the voter's face,” said the Kannur District Secretary of the CPI(M).
The Election Commission of India (ECI) had confirmed that repolling will be conducted in seven booths in Kerala where bogus votes were cast on April 23 for the Lok Sabha elections. The seven polling booths, which includes four booths in Kasaragod's Kalliasseri and Trikaripur assembly segments and three booths in Kannur's Taliparamba and Dharmadam Assembly constituencies will go to the polls on Sunday from 7 am to 6 pm.
“I want to ask the Election Commission whether they will allow people to come to the polling booth by covering their faces in front of the webcam and the CCTV cameras?” asked Jayarajan. “If they come like that, there will definitely be bogus voting. If the EC is able to stop this practice of covering the faces, then you will see that LDF will win in these booths,” he added.
These statements made by the Kannur District Secretary found support from members of the party including PK Sreemathy, the LDF candidate from Kannur Lok Sabha constituency.
“How will we understand whether the individual is a man or woman if they are covering their faces when they come to vote?” asked PK Sreemathy as she spoke to the media on Saturday. She went on to say that the EC must say that there is no use of keeping the photo of the voters in the voter’s roll if the voter cannot show their face.
By stating that the statements made by MV Jayarajan is not an attack on any religion, she went on to ask, “Why is your picture kept in the electoral rolls and in your voter’s ID card and the voter’s slip? To identify whether the person is the same as that on the picture. In that case, what is the use of covering their face?”
However, CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on Saturday said that people who were Purdah had the right to come to the polling booth but if the polling agent demands that their face be seen, then the voter is bound to show their face. “If casting of bogus votes are to be prevented, then it is necessary to identify the faces of the voters. This should not be an election of faceless voters,” he added.
Lashing out at MV Jayarajan for his statements, Rajmohan Unnithan, the UDF’s candidate from the Kasaragod Lok Sabha constituency said that the statements made by Jayarajan is controversial and is anti-islamic. “From the time of Prophet Mohammed itself, it is a tradition to cover the face. It is this tradition that Jayarajan has insulted and challenged.”
“Saleena and Padmini (CPI(M) members who cast bogus votes) did not come to vote while wearing a purdah right? Jayarajan is just taking out his frustration of re polling on a particular community,” added Rajmohan Unnithan.
The UDF and the BJP in Kerala have welcomed the decision of the Election Commission to conduct repolling in the state. It was found that some of the bogus votes were cast by members of the CPI(M) cadre. Some of the initial visuals of bogus voting were released by members of the Congress party which showed three women casting bogus votes. Among the three women, one of them was a Panchayat member of the CPI(M) and the other was a former panchayat member of the party.