Congress stages protest against CEC in Ahmedabad

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday said the “chorus of voices” against what it called the “capture of the electoral system” was growing louder, and asserted that citizens would no longer tolerate “vote chori” in any form.Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh made the remarks while citing former chief election commissioner O P Rawat’s criticism of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Ramesh alleged that nearly 14 crore voters had already been disenfranchised through the exercise.“In an interview to a leading national daily, Former CEC O.P. Rawat has questioned the SIR and the violations committed by the ECI. It is ‘the first time since Independence that so many eligible voters have lost their vote’,” Ramesh said in a post on X.He further cited Rawat as saying that the Election Commission, once considered the “gold standard”, had lost credibility and that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi should have done more to oppose decisions they disagreed with.

INDIA bloc announces protestsThe Congress’s latest attack came a day after the INDIA bloc announced a joint campaign against what opposition parties have described as irregularities in the electoral process.At a meeting attended by leaders of 19 opposition parties, the bloc announced joint “Save Democracy” marches across districts and five major rallies. Opposition MPs are also scheduled to march to the Election Commission on October 6, while opposition leaders plan to meet the President over alleged irregularities in voter-list revision.The bloc has also demanded that future elections be conducted using ballot papers and called for the Supreme Court to expedite cases concerning SIR and alleged electoral malpractices.The controversy comes as the Election Commission continues to review several issues linked to voter registration, electoral-roll databases and its IT systems following concerns raised internally by Sandhu and Joshi.