'Mortified PM Hellbent On Ensuring Gen Z Voters Do Not Have Their Names On Electoral Roll': Cong

Amid reports of differences within the EC over SIR, the Congress on Thursday alleged that Gen Z is being targeted for exclusion and pressed for its demand that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar must resign immediately.

The opposition party also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah will be held accountable for their "diabolical designs".

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said after the sensational revelations in a leading national daily on Wednesday on the shocking manner in which the CEC has completely "destroyed the integrity, credibility and competence of the Election Commission, there is another report this morning".

"The Goa CEO wrote to the ECI 8 times in 7 days for inclusion of valid voters deleted by the ECINet software. Goa's Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) had confirmed these were valid voters. The emails were ignored and voters deleted," he said in a post on X.

Citing a report in The Indian Express, he said the whole SIR has been handed over to this ECINet software, leading to the "disastrous" phase 3 of SIR which has deleted or flagged 54 per cent of voters in Delhi and nearly 12 crore across all states.

"In an illegal and centralising move, EROs' access to the ECINet software was restricted. According to The Representation of the People Act, 1950, the ERO has statutory authority over the electoral roll. The 2 ECs wrote to the Cabinet Secretary flagging this violation," Ramesh said.

In another illegal move, the process to add new voters through Form 6 has been made more difficult, he said.

Gen Z is being targeted for exclusion, Ramesh alleged.

Each new piece of evidence further confirms what the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has been saying for almost two years ever since the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly election results were out, the Congress leader said.

Ramesh alleged that election process has been thoroughly compromised and vitiated.

"This is Gyanesh Kumar implementing the Method of Disenfranchising Indians (MODI)," he charged.

"As a first step the CEC Gyanesh Kumar must resign immediately if he has any shred of decency and morality left in him. The PM and the HM will thereafter be held accountable for their diabolical designs," the Congress leader said.

In another post, Ramesh alleged, "It is clear that a mortified PM is hellbent on ensuring Gen Z voters do not have their names on the electoral roll. Seeing that Gen Z has hit the streets and is satirising him mercilessly but justifiably, he has deployed the CEC Gyanesh Kumar to keep them off the rolls."

The Special Summary Revision (SSR) through which the electoral rolls are revised every year has been kept frozen, he said.

"This is the pathway for addition of new voters especially for Gen Zs who have just turned 18 to be added. Despite the other two ECs strongly urging that SSR be resumed, no revision has happened for two years now since youth disenchantment with Mr. Modi became evident," Ramesh said.

He also shared a screenshot of a media report which claimed that amid simmering divisions in the Election Commission of India, crucial decisions, such as the annual revision of electoral rolls to include the 'Gen Z' 18-year-olds, are not only held up but have also overshot their May-June announcement timeline due to a lack of consensus between the chief election commissioner and the two election commissioners.

His remarks come a day after an Indian Express report said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions and orders they said were issued without their knowledge, even as the national rollout of the SIR was under the supervision of the full commission.

Their objections covered the manner in which the statutory voter registration Form 6 was amended, the handling of additions and deletions from voter lists, and centralised control over the electoral roll database, according to the report

Under fire over the red flags raised by two of its commissioners over the SIR process, the EC asserted on Wednesday that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution and all its orders carry full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.

In a statement, the poll panel also said that not only the three commissioners, but every officer of the EC is fully authorised to give his suggestions to the commission for improving the electoral system.