NEW DELHI: Only the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) can force Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar to resign, senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee said on Saturday.According to Kalyan Banerjee, who is from the Mamata Banerjee faction of the TMC, no political party can force Kumar to step down.“If the CJP gives a real challenge, they can remove Kumar; no other political party can. If the CJP does it, there will be quick disposal. They stick to one issue and pursue it with all their heart and soul,” he told a vernacular news channel.The CJP, a youth pressure group that led student protests that resulted in Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation as Union education minister over the NEET paper leak issue, has warned that it will launch a nationwide agitation in Mumbai from October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, if the CEC does not resign by Saturday.CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke on Thursday demanded Kumar’s resignation and threatened to launch a “Jantar Mantar 2.0” agitation if the poll body chief does not step down, referring to the designated protest venue in Delhi where the group held its sit-in demanding Pradhan’s resignation.Dipke’s remarks came a day after The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders of the Election Commission, including those concerning the addition, deletion and restoration of voters and changes to the voter registration process.Following the report, poll panel officials said the two commissioners had raised objections to decisions taken during the electoral roll clean-up and the handling of voter databases in various states.Election Commission sources, however, maintained that all decisions of the commission, including the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), had been unanimous and approved by both election commissioners and the chief election commissioner.
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Kumar, who became an election commissioner in 2024 and the CEC the following year, has repeatedly faced allegations of favouring the ruling BJP.Meanwhile, the Congress-led opposition INDIA bloc is expected to meet in Delhi on September 30 to discuss the Election Commission issue and decide its future course of action. The bloc is also expected to revive an impeachment motion against Kumar after an earlier motion, signed by nearly 200 opposition MPs, was not accepted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan.(With PTI inputs)
