Minta Devi voter list row: Rijiju slams Congress for mocking Bihar woman

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday (August 13) criticised the Congress party and Opposition MPs for allegedly mocking Bihar resident Minta Devi during their protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in the state.

Also Read: BJP alleges Sonia Gandhi was on voter list before getting Indian citizenship

Rijiju's X post

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Rijiju wrote, "Whole day Congress and opposition MPs used the photo of Minta Devi, mocked her that she is 124 years old! Will Congress apologise to the nation?"

He also targeted the Congress for recently sacking Karnataka minister K N Rajanna after he admitted to voter list irregularities during the party’s tenure in the state.

"Congress Minister in Karnataka has also accused his own Congress Government," Rijiju said.

The minister also attached a video showing Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi addressing the media about the alleged manipulation of the voter list, followed by Devi’s own remarks to reporters, where she lashed out at the Opposition for using her image without permission.

Devi speaks up

Devi, who became the face of the INDIA bloc’s protest on Tuesday against alleged 'vote chori' (vote theft), was born in 1990 and is 35 years old.

She condemned both the clerical error in the Election Commission’s (EC) records, which mistakenly listed her birth year as 1900, and the Opposition MPs for featuring her on protest T-shirts.

Joking about the error, she reportedly said if the government truly believed she was 124 years old, she should be given an old-age pension.

Also Read: Congress mobilises grassroots campaign on ‘vote fraud’ ahead of Bihar elections

‘EC made me a grandma’

"The Election Commission has made me a grandma," she said, suppressing a laugh. "How can I be blamed for the goof-up? I had filled up my enumeration form online, after having waited in vain for a visit by the booth-level officer," said Devi, whose name is now trending on social media.

Despite being eligible to vote for years, her name never made it to the rolls. "I wrote 1990 as my birth year, as in my Aadhaar card. I can’t help it if the draft rolls turned 1990 into 1900," she said.

The Siwan district administration had clarified that they had already taken corrective steps before the issue went viral.

According to the district administration, the booth-level officer had alerted Devi on August 10, and she had submitted an application to fix the error, which would be processed during the claims and objections phase of the SIR.

Also Read: Opposition holds 'T-shirt protest' against SIR, 'vote chori' in Parliament premises

Opposition's T-shirt protest

Opposition MPs, led by Priyanka Gandhi, used the image of Devi, a Bihar resident, during a protest against the SIR in Bihar.

The protest, held in New Delhi, featured several INDIA bloc MPs wearing T-shirts with Devi's picture and the phrase "124 not out," referring to her being erroneously listed as 124 years old on the voter list.

The protest against the SIR came amid accusations from INDIA bloc parties that the EC was colluding with the BJP to selectively remove voters from the rolls.