New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hit back at Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi after he demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar amid the ongoing controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi accused Gandhi of having “zero” political sense and questioned the Congress’ electoral record while responding to his remarks at a press conference in Delhi.
BJP Questions Congress’ Electoral Performance
Reacting to Gandhi’s statements, Trivedi claimed that the Congress had not won an election on its own strength and cited the party’s electoral history in several states.
He referred to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s victory from Wayanad and said the Congress had not formed governments in West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha for several decades.
Trivedi also questioned the Indian Express report concerning objections reportedly raised by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi over aspects of the SIR process.
BJP Questions Indian Express Report on EC Objections
Trivedi questioned why the statements of the Election Commissioners were not included in the report and asked how the report could be considered complete without their responses.
The Indian Express investigation reported that Sandhu and Joshi had formally raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months on issues including voter additions and deletions, changes to Form 6 and the handling and centralisation of electoral-roll data.
The Election Commission has maintained that differing views are part of its decision-making process and has said that decisions taken by the Commission, including those related to SIR, were unanimous.
Rahul Gandhi Demands CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s Resignation
Earlier on Thursday, Rahul Gandhi demanded the immediate resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar and said he should “turn approver” in connection with the issues raised around the functioning of the Election Commission.
Gandhi also praised the two Election Commissioners for raising their objections and said the matter was linked to what he described as the need to protect democracy.
The remarks came a day after the Indian Express report detailed the objections recorded by Sandhu and Joshi during the SIR process. The report said their concerns covered voter registration, deletion and restoration of names, electoral-roll data and changes to Form 6.
The BJP and Congress have continued to exchange allegations over the SIR exercise, while the Election Commission has maintained that the final decisions were taken unanimously.