New Delhi, Sep 28: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the ongoing SIR was a method of “vote chori” and asserted that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar will go but the system that made him do this will also have to answer.
The leader of opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha made the remarks in a post along with a video of his visit to a ‘jhuggi’ in Bela Estate on the banks of the Yamuna in the national capital on Monday evening.
In the video, Gandhi is heard speaking with the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) about the voter deletions in the area and asks him to share his name and designation, adding that he would deal with the official in “another way”.
In the post in Hindi accompanying the video, Gandhi said 728 people live in Bela Estate on the banks of the Yamuna and after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, only one name remains in the voter list while the other 727 names have been struck off.
“These people have been living here for decades. They have already voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the 2025 Delhi elections.
“In 2023, their homes were demolished but they didn’t go anywhere; they’re still right here. Today, I went to their jhuggi and heard directly from them what the Election Commission has done to them,” the former Congress chief said.
“On the phone with the SDM, I said exactly this — having a house or not has no connection to the right to vote,” he said.
CEC Kumar himself has said that ‘House Number 0’ is for the homeless, and yet, 727 people’s names have been struck off, Gandhi said.
“This isn’t SIR; this is a method of vote chori. From those who already have the least, their only power is being snatched away.
“Gyanesh Kumar will go. But the system that made him do this will also have to answer,” Gandhi said.
Earlier, ramping up pressure on Kumar, the Congress said the first step in the long road to reclaiming the country’s democracy is the resignation of the CEC who is both a “front” for the “diabolical PM-HM duo” and an “affront” to the Constitution.
On Saturday, the Election Commission asserted that all SIR orders received unanimous consent from all three commissioners and the updates to Form 6 for voter enrolment were upheld by the Supreme Court, as it sought to address issues at the centre of a raging row over decision-making in the poll panel and concerns over exclusion of voters from the rolls.
After its first meeting following reports claiming differences between the CEC and the two election commissioners, the poll panel had said in a statement that the letters sent by Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi to the Cabinet Secretary pertained to an officer on deputation, rather than policy or IT division matters.
The Indian Express has claimed that Sandhu and Joshi had objected on record at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders on SIR that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation. (PTI)
