Punjab elections: Sidhu complains to EC against AAP’s phone survey

Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday submitted a complaint to the Election Commission against the Aam Aadmi Party’s ‘Janata Chunegi Apna CM’ phone survey to name its chief ministerial candidate, calling it “fake propaganda”

Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday submitted a complaint to the Election Commission against the Aam Aadmi Party’s ‘Janata Chunegi Apna CM’ phone survey to name its chief ministerial candidate, calling it “fake propaganda”.

Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday submitted a complaint to the Election Commission against the Aam Aadmi Party’s ‘Janata Chunegi Apna CM’ phone survey to name its chief ministerial candidate, calling it “fake propaganda”. (HT file photo)

The PPCC chief complained that prima facie the AAP’s survey seems to be fake as the data with respect to 21.59 lakh phone calls, voice messages and WhatsApp messages within just four days is not mathematically logical. “At the initial stage, this data pertaining to call logs is assumed to be fake,” Sidhu has written to the chief election commissioner, demanding the registration of a case against the AAP through its national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal if his charge is found to be true. Sidhu released his complaint to the media at a press conference in Chandigarh.

Kejriwal had on January 18 named the AAP’s Punjab unit president and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann as the chief ministerial face of the party in the state following its phone survey. “The party received 21.59 lakh responses from people during the drive to pick the CM face. Of them, 93.3% respondents took Bhagwant Mann’s name,” Kejriwal had said while announcing his name at an event in Mohali.

In his complaint, Sidhu said the AAP was claiming that they have received 7 lakh WhatsApp messages, 2.5 lakh voice messages and 8 lakh voice calls, but this does not make sense at all. “Usually, such calls take at least 15 seconds, then only 5,760 calls can be attended in one day and that shall add up to 23,040 calls in four days,” he wrote, asking the Election Commission to direct the AAP to shut this campaign and issue a public retraction.

The Congress leader also requested the poll panel to direct the party to provide all call and message logs for verification.

Terming it a “deceptive drive”, he said that the AAP had tried to fool people through this campaign.