India
pti-PTI
The Congress on Thursday directed its state units to organise protest marches to their respective state election commission offices on September 25, demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s immediate arrest, removal from office, and an independent review of all decisions and electoral roll changes made under him.
The Congress is organizing protest marches on Sept 25 to state EC offices and Sept 28 to district collectorates, demanding CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s arrest and removal over alleged electoral irregularities and decisions within the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, which reportedly faced objections from fellow commissioners.
All District Congress Committees (DCCs) will organise similar massive protest marches to their respective District Collectorates on September 28. Congress general secretary in-charge organisation K C Venugopal said since day one, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has been exposing the “massive vote chori” exercise being spearheaded by the “BJP-controlled CEC Mr. Gyanesh Kumar”.
After the massive revelations on Wednesday, Kumar’s “treason” is out in the open and he must be arrested for his anti-national acts against our democracy, Venugopal said.
“The Congress will be taking to the streets on this burning issue, and all Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) have been instructed to organise massive protest marches to their respective State Election Commission Offices tomorrow, 25th September, firmly demanding his immediate arrest, his removal from office, and a comprehensive, independent review of all decisions and electoral roll changes made under him,” Venugopal said.
As the second phase of the protests, all District Congress Committees (DCCs) will organise similar massive protest marches to their respective District Collectorates on September 28th, he said. “Gyanesh must go, and all his decisions must be reversed.
Our protests will relentlessly go on until he is removed, sent to jail and all our demands are met,” Venugopal said.
Venugopal’s remarks come a day after The Indian Express revealed that questions were repeatedly raised on issues related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls within the three-member Election Commission (EC) by two of the three election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
The national rollout of the SIR has been under the supervision of all three commissioners. But Sandhu and Joshi have formally objected, on record, at least 14 times over the last 10 months four times on a single day to decisions taken and orders issued, they say, without their knowledge, according to the report in the English daily.
