CJP demands Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, SIR pause and a halt to upcoming polls.
Abhijeet Dipke warns of “Jantar Mantar 2.0” if Kumar does not resign.
Election Commission says all decisions, including SIR, were unanimous and approved by all three commissioners.
The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has demanded Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, a pause in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and a halt to upcoming polls amid the ongoing Election Commission row. At a press conference on Thursday, the pressure group also warned that it would protest if Kumar does not step down within 48 hours.
“Jantar Mantar 2.0 will definitely happen if CEC Gyanesh Kumar doesn't resign,” CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said during the press conference. Dipke linked the warning directly to the controversy surrounding the poll panel.
The demands came a day after an investigative report by The Indian Express triggered a fresh political row. The report said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions taken under the commission’s name.
The objections covered Form 6 changes, centralisation of the ERONet system, voter-deletion appeals and other election-management issues. Sandhu and Joshi also separately wrote to Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan over changes to the Election Commission’s IT systems, expressing concerns about oversight of voter-list systems, the report said.
The Election Commission rejected any suggestion of a split, saying all its decisions, including SIR, had been unanimous and approved by both Election Commissioners and the Chief Election Commissioner.
The poll body also said differing views were a normal part of institutional deliberations before a final decision is taken.
