ECI row: BJD President Patnaik demands immediate resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar
ECI row: BJD President Patnaik demands immediate resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar Bhubaneswar, Sep 25 (IANS) Leader of Opposition (LoP) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) President, Naveen Patnaik, on Friday demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar following reports about differences within the Election Commission of India (ECI) over decisions related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, new voter registration and voter data, among other things. Speaking to the media, Patnaik said, “Because of the strong and sharp differences between the two Election Commissioners and the Chief Election Commissioner, the CEC should immediately resign and the whole SIR process should be thoroughly revisited. The BJD has been against this SIR process from the beginning.” Earlier, the Odisha Congress announced that it would organise a massive rally on Friday from the power house square to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) demanding the ouster of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, after a media report recently claimed that the two Election Commissioners had “objected on record” to several decisions taken by the poll panel, allegedly without their knowledge. In a press conference organised here on Thursday, the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) alleged serious irregularities in the electoral process and demanded the immediate removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar through the impeachment process, besides scrapping the allegedly flawed SIR of electoral rolls. Addressing a press conference at Congress Bhawan here, Congress leader Arabinda Das alleged that what Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has been saying for the last three years about “vote theft” has now been proved true by the investigative media report. Das alleged that the Modi government has been using the Election Commission as a “weapon” to manipulate the country’s electoral process. He further alleged that CEC Gyanesh Kumar, acting in favour of the BJP government, has been conducting a flawed SIR across the country, thereby undermining the democratic system. He claimed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections to various decisions of the Commission on 14 occasions over the past 10 months, but that the CEC has ignored their objections and proceeded with decisions according to his own preference. “The fact that two members of the Election Commission have raised such serious objections against its head shows that the entire system has been compromised,” Das stated.
