Bhubaneswar: Leaders of the Congress-led INDIA bloc in Odisha staged a protest at Lower PMG in Bhubaneswar on Sunday, condemning alleged police excesses during an opposition demonstration in Delhi on October 10.
The protest in the national capital had demanded the dismissal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Senior Congress leader Santosh Singh Saluja, who participated in the protest, alleged that police personnel had misbehaved with women protesters in Delhi, describing the incident as unacceptable in a democracy.
Questioning the Election Commission’s handling of the SIR exercise and Form 6 applications, Saluja claimed that around 13 crore voters had been deleted from electoral rolls across the country in six months. He stressed the need to safeguard electoral transparency and citizens’ voting rights.
The joint INDIA bloc rally began at Master Canteen Square and proceeded to Lower PMG, where participants staged a demonstration and held a protest meeting.
Addressing the gathering, the speakers alleged that the Union Home Ministry had created a war-like situation and virtually turned Delhi into a military camp to suppress the October 10 protest. They claimed that police had cordoned off political party offices, erected barricades on roads and arrested people arriving in the capital by train, Metro and air.
They further alleged that police had resorted to lathi charges and tear gas in several places, with more than 7,000 people, including students, members of mass organisations and political leaders, arrested or detained. The speakers also alleged that the SIR exercise had been misused in Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal following Kumar’s appointment as CEC.
The INDIA bloc leaders demanded Kumar’s dismissal, the restoration of names deleted from electoral rolls during the SIR exercise, and the reinstatement of the earlier mechanism for selecting Election Commissioners, which included the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India.
They also called for the reintroduction of ballot papers in place of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The leaders said the nationwide agitation would continue until all four demands were met. They also announced a massive rally in Delhi on October 12.
