Left Parties Protest At EC Headquarters, Demand CEC Gyanesh Kumar's Removal

Left party leaders held a protest at the Election Commission headquarters here on Tuesday demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar amid the ongoing controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

CPI(M) General Secretary M A Baby, Brinda Karat, CPI leader and NFIW president Nisha Sidhu, and CPI(ML) Liberation central committee members Sucheta De and Shweta Raj were among those who took part in the protest. As the protesters raised slogans demanding Kumar's removal, police forcibly detained them.

"Gyanesh Kumar should resign or be removed. We cannot allow him to continue," Baby said.

The CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML) Liberation, RSP and All India Forward Bloc had announced week-long protest programmes from September 26 to October 2 over the functioning of the Election Commission and the SIR exercise.

The Congress also held protests a day earlier across the country to demand CEC Kumar's removal.

The opposition has declared a no-holds-barred offensive for Kumar's ouster following an Indian Express report that Election Commissioners S S Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on record at least 14 times over the previous 10 months on decisions relating to voter registration, deletion and restoration of names and the SIR exercise.

The Election Commission has subsequently said decisions relating to the SIR had received the unanimous approval of all three commissioners and announced measures to assist voters facing notices during the revision.

"Left parties staged a protest at the EC to demand that the compromised Gyanesh Kumar, who was manipulating SIR, should be removed. Instead of hearing us out, they brutally detained us," De alleged.

"The way CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby and others were brutally manhandled and detained shows the police are suppressing citizens to protect Gyanesh Kumar," she said.

In a statement, the CPI(ML) Liberation said the police had unleashed a "violent crackdown" on the protesters.

"We have been detained and we don't know where we are being taken. The protesters include several CPI-ML leaders, CPI-M leaders, CPI-ML general secretary Comrade MA Baby, CPI-ML leader comrade Sucheta De, Shweta Raj, AICCTU and AILAJ activists along with other senior leaders, trade union leaders and we don't know where we are being taken," it said.

The Left parties are also demanding an immediate halt to the SIR exercise and restoration of voting rights to people whose names they allege have been wrongfully excluded from electoral rolls.

Baby had reached out to opposition parties, including non-BJP and non-NDA parties, seeking coordinated action on the issue. He has said the Left parties would continue with their own programmes while seeking a wider response.