New Delhi: Chief minister Rekha Gupta Sunday hit out at the opposition over allegations of “vote theft”, saying that attempts were being made to mislead the people of the country.At a news conference at Jan Seva Sadan, Gupta questioned the basis for making serious allegations against the Election Commission “on the basis of a news report”. She said the poll panel had itself “clarified the matter and explained its process”.The chief minister’s remarks follow the demand by Congress and several other parties and organisations for the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar after a recent investigation by The Indian Express, which claimed that two election commissioners had objected to various decisions on the SIR at least 14 times over a 10-month period.Gupta asked the opposition parties whether transparency and accountability in the electoral process had been seen in states where the opposition parties had been in power.“There had been no change in Form 6. Under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a separate declaration has been provided along with Form 6, according to the Election Commission,” the chief minister said.On allegations of large-scale deletion of names from the electoral rolls, Gupta claimed the names were removed when people had shifted to other places or had died.“People say so many votes have been cut. Those who have shifted, those who are no longer alive — would you conduct voting for such people? This is how such names are removed,” she said.Senior Congress functionary Devender Yadav said Congress would not tolerate any attempt to undermine democracy by the Election Commission at the behest of BJP. He said the commission was fraudulently deleting and adding names to the voter list, completely destroying transparency in the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) process.
