Bhubaneswar, Sep 25 (SocialNews.XYZ) Odisha Congress on Friday organised a massive rally and gheraoed the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Odisha, in Bhubaneswar, demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the electoral process.
Led by Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Bhakta Charan Das, Congress leaders and workers marched from the ADM office to the CEO’s office and staged the gherao.
Addressing the media during the protest, Das alleged that the Chief Election Commissioner has been acting at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government and claimed that Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of “vote theft” have now been proved true.
“Not today, but for the last three years, Rahul Gandhi has been saying that ‘vote theft’ is taking place. His allegations have been proved true,” Das said.
He alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been using the Election Commission as a weapon to “steal” the country’s electoral process. Das added that CEC Kumar, acting as a proxy for the BJP government, oversaw a flawed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) across the country and thereby undermined the democratic system.
Das further alleged that over the past 10 months, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on 14 occasions to various decisions of the Commission. He claimed that Kumar ignored their objections and continued to take decisions unilaterally.
He also alleged that the two commissioners raised objections as many as four times in a single day, but the Commission ignored them. According to Das, they also learned about important modules, details, and decisions of the Commission through the media, indicating that they had been kept in the dark.
Das alleged that Form-6, used to include new voters in electoral rolls, had been changed illegally despite the Commission allegedly lacking the authority to do so. He claimed that Joshi had objected to the change, but his objection was ignored. He also alleged that the agendas of several Commission meetings were neither published in advance nor were their proceedings made public afterwards.
The OPCC president also referred to letters written to the Cabinet Secretary in which the two serving commissioners alleged that CEC Gyanesh Kumar had violated the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
“This raises the question as to why the two serving commissioners had to take the matter outside the Commission to make their voices heard, and who initially provided political protection to the CEC to act against the law? The Modi government cannot distance itself from the question of accountability,” noted Das.
Criticising the Election Commission’s explanation that decisions were taken unanimously despite differences of opinion among commissioners, Das termed the explanation “highly ridiculous.”
Reiterating LoP Rahul Gandhi’s statement labelling officials manipulating rolls as “traitors,” Das demanded Kumar’s resignation or impeachment, while citing Priyanka Gandhi’s demand for criminal proceedings against him.
Source: IANS
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