Congress takes out rally in Kolkata seeking CEC Gyanesh Kumar's arrest; police stop it midway

Kolkata: The Congress took out a march to the Election Commission office here on Friday, demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's arrest amid a newspaper report of disquiet within the poll panel over pan-India SIR, but police stopped it midway.

The protest, which was part of the party's nationwide agitation against the chief election commissioner, saw a huge participation of its workers from districts.

Led by West Bengal Congress chief Subhankar Sarkar, the rally started outside the Calcutta University's College Street campus and was headed towards the state chief electoral officer's Strand Road office amid heavy police deployment along the route.


They were stopped at the B B Ganguly Street crossing in Central Kolkata. The protesters burnt an effigy of Kumar and demanded his arrest.

Addressing the gathering, Sarkar said the party would continue its agitation until its demands were met. "We want the immediate arrest of the CEC. We will not let this protest die down so easily. It is a question of the rights of the common people," he said.

A senior Kolkata Police officer told PTI that action by the force was part of its steps to maintain law and order. "The rally could have caused a huge traffic issue in the city. Our senior officers are present there," he said.

The Congress has alleged that Gen Z was being targeted for exclusion and pressed for its demand that Chief Election Commissioner Kumar must resign immediately.

It took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by recalling that Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 reduced the minimum age for voting from 21 to 18 years, and said one PM gave Gen Z the vote, the other is determined to "snatch it away through underhanded means".

This came 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 has asserted 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 suggestions to the commission to improve the electoral system.