Nothing can save CEC; SIR must be suspended forthwith: Congress

Mr. Ramesh alleged that Mr. Kumar, acting on the instructions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had destroyed public trust in the ECI. File | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

The Congress on Sunday demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the immediate suspension of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, saying the Election Commission’s decision to provide “readable” voter rolls to political parties was the result of nationwide protests against alleged “vote chori”.

Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said the party and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had consistently demanded that the Election Commission of India (ECI) provide electoral rolls in a searchable format to all political parties over the past two years.

“The demand was repeatedly refused by the ECI, which stopped providing searchable voter rolls in 2018 when the Congress found lakhs of bogus voters in Madhya Pradesh. The demand was denied for eight years to enable Vote Chori,” Ramesh said in a post on X.