Guwahati, Sep 28 (PTI) The Assam Congress on Monday staged protests in several parts of the state, demanding the resignation and arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Election Commission.
State party president Gaurav Gogoi led the protest at Nagaon, while a demonstration was also staged in Guwahati, among other places.
Gogoi, who is camping in Nagaon for the ensuing Lok Sabha bypoll there, said the Congress will intensify its movement against Kumar in the coming days.
He said the impartiality of the electoral system and democratic values have to be safeguarded at any cost.
Gogoi was accompanied by AICC secretary Manoj Chauhan, MP Rakibul Hussain, former MLA and by-election candidate Sibamoni Bora, and state Mahila Congress president Mira Borthakur Goswami, among others.
The protesters also burnt effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the CEC at some places.
In Guwahati, the opposition party staged the protest at its office in Manbendra Sarma complex in Dispur area.
Senior leaders, including Bipul Gogoi, Bedabrat Bora, Swapan Das, Bidisha Neog and Rituparna Konwar, led the demonstration.
They were, however, prevented by the police from leaving the office campus.
Confined within the office premises, the Congress leaders and workers raised slogans against the central government and the CEC.
Similar protests were also staged in several other districts, including Golaghat, Jorhat, Goalpara, Bongaigaon, Nalbari and Dhubri.
The CEC and the poll panel have been facing criticism following a recent Indian Express report that had claimed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected to decisions and orders they said were issued without their knowledge, even as the national rollout of the SIR was under the supervision of the full commission.
Their objections covered the way the statutory voter registration Form 6 was amended, the handling of additions and deletions from voter lists, and centralised control over the electoral roll database, according to the report. PTI SSG RBT
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