Mamata Gyanesh Kumar arrest
The political controversy surrounding the Election Commission has intensified following an investigative report by The Indian Express on internal objections within the poll panel.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday demanded the arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and criminal proceedings against him. She also called for recent elections to be cancelled and fresh polls to be held using the previous electoral rolls.
Speaking during a Facebook Live session, Banerjee alleged that the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, had been used to manipulate electoral rolls. She also made allegations concerning EVMs and the conduct of recent elections.
She demanded criminal proceedings against Gyanesh Kumar and action against those whom she alleged had supported the process.
These are political allegations made by Banerjee and have not been established as facts. The Election Commission, responding to the controversy, has said that all final decisions of the Commission, including those related to SIR, were taken unanimously.
Banerjee’s second major demand was for recent elections to be cancelled and fresh elections to be conducted using the previous electoral rolls.
She questioned elections held after the SIR exercise, alleging that large numbers of voters had been removed from electoral rolls before the polls.
Other Opposition leaders have also raised concerns over the electoral process. Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray has called for fresh elections using ballot papers in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, while AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has also demanded action against Gyanesh Kumar and fresh polls.
However, cancellation of elections and ordering fresh polls are matters governed by constitutional and legal procedures. In West Bengal, several issues concerning the SIR and appeals against voter deletions are already before the courts.
An investigation published by The Indian Express on September 23 reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally raised objections at least 14 times over the previous 10 months.
The reported objections concerned several aspects of electoral administration, including adding new voters, deleting names, changes to Form 6 and the management of electoral-roll databases. The report also raised questions about increasing centralisation of access to voter databases at the Election Commission headquarters in Delhi.
The report triggered strong reactions from Opposition parties. Banerjee also referred to Election Commission IT official Seema Khanna while making allegations about the voter-roll revision process.
Banerjee has previously alleged that AI was used in the voter-roll revision process to remove names. Those allegations have not been independently established as fact.
The Election Commission, meanwhile, rejected suggestions that the reported internal objections represented a split in the poll panel. It said that differences of opinion and observations are part of institutional deliberations and that all final decisions over the past year, including SIR, were taken unanimously by the full Commission.
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