"Election Commission works for BJP only": Congress' Chennithala vows to fight Bihar's SIR in court

India Gazette

7 hours ago

New Delhi [India], July 8 (ANI): Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala, on Tuesday, alleged that the Election Commission is in favour of and works for the BJP. Citing the example of Bihar, Chennithala claimed that two crore new voters have been added in the state before the Assembly polls.
Speaking to ANI, the Congress leader emphasised that they will fight the issue in the court as it is very important to bring transparency to the election.
'Our leader, Rahul Gandhi, told everyone clearly how 75 lakh votes were added. Rahul Gandhi has put the evidence in front of the Election Commission of all the misdeeds the opposition party have committed to defeat the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra. However, the election commission is in favour of the BJP and works for them only. There is a recent example of Bihar, where two crore new voters have been added... We will take this to court and fight against it. It is very important to bring transparency to the election,' Chennithala said.
Since the announcement of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the opposition parties have raised their concerns.
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Monday claimed that those who do not have any of the 11 documents asked for verification, their names will be 'removed' from the electoral roll list.
Congress leader Randeep Surjewala asked whether it is 'democracy' of BJP's 'vote suppression mechanism'.
AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi also warned that lakhs of people in Bihar could lose their citizenship and livelihoods if the Election Commission proceeds with its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls without adequate time and safeguards.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear on July 10 a batch of pleas challenging the Election Commission of India's (ECI) move to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi agreed to list the matter on Thursday and allowed the parties to give advance notice of the petitions to the Election Commission of India and serve copies of the petitions.
Earlier, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar underlined the importance of carrying out a revision of the electoral rolls, saying that the poll panel has constantly held meetings with thousands of representatives of political parties, who had expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of the electoral rolls.
'During the past 4 months, all 4,123 EROs, all 775 DEOs and all 36 CEOs have held nearly 5,000 meetings with 28,000 political party representatives. ECI has also invited all Recognised political parties for interaction. No one was satisfied with the current status of electoral rolls for one reason or the other,' the CEC said.
Bihar elections are expected to be held later this year in October or November; however, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has not yet announced the dates.
While the NDA, consisting of the BJP, JD(U), and LJP, will once again be looking to continue their stint in Bihar, the INDIA bloc, consisting of the RJD, Congress, and left parties, will be looking to unseat Nitish Kumar.
Prashant Kishore has presented his party, Jan Suraaj, as another alternative in the state.
In the current Bihar Assembly of 243 members, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) consists of 131 with the BJP having 80 MLAs, JD(U)-45, HAM(S)-4, with the support of 2 Independent candidates. The Opposition's INDIA Bloc has a strength of 111 members with RJD leading with 77 MLAs, Congress-19, CPI(ML)-11, CPI(M)-2 and CPI-2. (ANI)