EC under fire as Congress alleges ‘mass manipulation and rigging’ in Bengal polls
NEW DELHI: Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday accused the Election Commission of overseeing “mass manipulation and rigging” during the West Bengal assembly polls. He further demanded accountability from Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar as well as other two election commissioners along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah.“More skeletons are tumbling out of the Election Omission of India’s closet. Clearly the PM-HM strategy was to somehow capture and win the West Bengal Assembly elections at any cost. It was a text book case of mass manipulation and rigging which was overseen by the CEC. The puppet has of course to go but the two puppeteers too have to be held accountable. They stand brutally exposed and now it is only a matter of time for them to meet their reckoning,” Ramesh wrote in a post on X.“Today, MPs of the INDIA janbandhan plus other Opposition MPs who have also been invited will be marching peacefully to the Election Commission of India to demand the CEC’s resignation. Looks like the Parliament complex is already under an unprecedented security siege showing the extreme nervousness of the puppeteer pair,” he added.
Jairam Ramesh’s latest attack on EC
Ramesh’s remarks followed a media report claiming that judges of more than a dozen tribunals appointed in West Bengal on the Supreme Court’s directions to hear appeals related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), including those involving 27 lakh deleted electors, had flagged gaps in a digital portal created by the Election Commission’s IT division.The Congress has stepped up its criticism of the poll panel amid a wider dispute over the SIR exercise. The opposition’s latest attack also comes after the Supreme Court said it had not approved any modification to Form 6, the application used by eligible voters to seek inclusion in electoral rolls.A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, said, “We will examine all the decisions. If any decision is not in accordance with the law, we will annul it. You know the power of the court.”The bench also said, “any modification to Form 6 has not been approved by us. Let’s be clear. When records are produced, we would like to see who has modified it”.The Congress and other opposition parties have demanded Kumar’s resignation, alleging that changes to Form 6 were made unilaterally during the SIR process. Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the CEC and others involved in what he called a “criminal assault on democracy” would be held accountable.
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Separately, a report by The Indian Express said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders, many concerning the SIR exercise.The Election Commission has rejected concerns arising from the reported differences, saying divergent views are part of institutional deliberations and that its orders have full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.
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