Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday stepped up his attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI) over a report of differences within the poll panel over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Reacting to the reported rift, Gandhi accused the Election Commission, the BJP and the RSS of being involved in what he described as “vote chori”, alleging that the exercise amounted to an attack on the Constitution.
“Vote chori is a crime against the Indian people and a direct attack on our Constitution. The BJP, RSS and EC who organised it have committed an act of treason. Justice will be served,” Gandhi said in a post on Wednesday.
His remarks come amid heightened political scrutiny of the SIR exercise, which has triggered a wider debate over the verification and revision of electoral rolls. Opposition parties have raised concerns over the possible exclusion of genuine voters, while the Election Commission has maintained that the revision process is aimed at ensuring the accuracy and integrity of electoral rolls.
Opposition parties hit out
Opposition parties have taken aim at the EC, with Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pramod calling Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar “compromised” and alleging that he was working in favour of the BJP.
Veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram said, “The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that if the decision-making process is flawed or wrong, the decision will also be flawed or wrong…If two ECs have taken a contrary view, how could the CEC make his view the ‘decision’ of the ECI ? All decisions of the ECI in recent years should be reviewed by a Parliamentary Committee Meanwhile, the S.I.R. process should be suspended immediately all over the country.”
DMK leader TKS Elangovan also attacked the SIR exercise, alleging that the BJP-led government was using it to “remove Muslims from the country and turn India into a Hindu nation”.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav wrote: “This is an extremely serious news…This directly means that all Election Commissioners are not able to perform their rightful duties. If the members of an independent body do not have the freedom to carry out just actions or if there is no hearing of theirs, then these are extremely fatal and dangerous circumstances for democracy. For some people to betray democracy by becoming puppets of those in power is a grave constitutional crime. This is nothing less than a conspiracy to wipe out democracy.”
TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose said the report showed that Gyanesh Kumar had turned the Election Commission into a “one man show”. “…Gyanesh Kumar has converted @ECISVEEP into a one man show. The blame for the deeply flawed and chaotic SIR process lies squarely at the door of the CEC. Question: on whose orders is Gyanesh Kumar repeatedly disenfranchising crores of India’s citizens and snatching away the right to vote, without any oversight whatsoever?”
As per an Indian Express report, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised at least 14 formal objections over 10 months to decisions linked to the SIR. The objections reportedly covered voter registration and deletions, electoral-roll software and appeals against decisions taken during the revision.
Sources in the poll panel told Times Now that there was no dissent within the Commission. According to ECI sources, the observations made by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi on various matters were considered and examined by the Commission.
