Bhubaneswar, Sep 25 (PTI) Four Left parties in Odisha on Friday demanded immediate dismissal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and restoration of the voting rights of people whose names have been “wrongly” excluded during the SIR of electoral rolls.
In a joint statement, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) Liberation and Forward Bloc also demanded that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise be stopped immediately.
The parties held a meeting on Friday and decided to hold statewide protests.
The development came after an Indian Express report claimed Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months 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 manner in which 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.
Expressing surprise at Gyanesh Kumar’s “unilateral decisions”, the Left parties concluded that the issues raised by opposition parties and various organisations were right that the report exposed “lack of transparency” in the conduct of SIR and the management of electoral rolls.
“Any such system, in which the right to vote is not transparent and is dependent on processes under centralised control, undermines public confidence in the electoral system,” they said.
The Left parties of the country have called upon all their branches across states to organise week-long protest programmes from September 26 to October 2. PTI AAM NN
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