New Delhi: The Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Tuesday deliberated on a host of burning issues concerning the ‘irregularities’ in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and vowed to launch nationwide protests against alleged malpractices by the Election Commission (EC).
Addressing a press conference after the CWC meet, Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal launched a scathing attack on the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, demanding his immediate sacking while alleging that he was acting at the behest of the Centre to deprive crores of voters their democratic right to cast a vote.
“The SIR is a complete fraud exercise. The CEC is completely compromised, the Election system is rigged, both the EVMs and the voters’ lists are compromised — designed to favour the BJP in elections,” Venugopal claimed.
He said that the Congress party will aggressively resist the ‘design to hijack’ the democracy and launch a pan-India protest soon, after consultation with the INDIA bloc partners.
“The democracy and the country are under threat under prevailing circumstances. We will fight tooth and nail and won’t let EC succeed in its designs,” he noted, while highlighting the Congress stir at more than 800 places in the last two-three days.
Notably, a meeting of the INDIA bloc allies is scheduled for Wednesday, where all opposition parties are expected to close ranks against the irregularities and formalise a plan to protest, seeking Gyanesh Kumar’s ouster.
The Congress leader, during the press conference, put forth two demands.
“We are demanding immediate resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, as he has no moral right to continue in the chair for a single day,” he said.
“Congress party’s other demand is immediate suspension of SIR, restoration of 13.30 voters, whose names have been illegally struck off from the voters list,” he added.
Escalating his attack on the Centre, he said that all the CWC members echoed the view that CEC Gyanesh Kumar was not alone but “a tool” in the hands of his “political masters” in altering the SIR process unilaterally.
“Whenever dictators lose confidence, they try to find extraordinary tools to continue in power. This cannot happen without the concurrence of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. The two CECs purportedly wrote to the Cabinet Secretary, and that this must have been brought to the Prime Minister’s notice,” he said.
Jairam Ramesh, citing Rahul Gandhi’s comments at the CWC meet, said that the Congress party has been raising issues of ‘vote chori’ and unfair manipulation of electoral rolls, but no one paid heed, and these ‘revelations’ have exposed the malpractices within the poll panel.
“Rahul Gandhi told the CWC members that it was because of the Congress party that such disclosures are being made. From the Karnataka to Haryana elections, Rahul cited multiple instances of electoral malpractice and made detailed presentations, but people didn’t believe him. Today, the disclosures show that what he was saying was right,” he told the press.
Venugopal, while spelling out the Congress strategy on protests against the EC, said the party will “protest in the Parliament and resist on the streets”. However, a clear and designed roadmap for pan-India protest will be taken up after the INDIA bloc meeting on Wednesday, he added.
(IANS)
