Karnataka Congress protests against SIR, demands CEC Gyanesh Kumar's resignation

Bengaluru: Karnataka Congress on Saturday staged a protest at Freedom Park here against the Election Commission's SIR exercise, demanding the resignation and arrest of CEC Gyanesh Kumar.

Citing media reports, party leaders alleged that Kumar had taken several decisions without the concurrence of the other two Election Commissioners despite their objections. They alleged that the exercise had resulted in the deletion of a large number of voters' names.

Terming the alleged actions of the CEC as being against democracy and the Constitution, Congress leaders and workers staged the protest, holding placards and raising slogans demanding Kumar's resignation and action against him.


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Several senior party leaders, such as Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, State Congress President B K Hariprasad, former Chief Ministers Siddaramaiah and Veerappa Moily, AICC Secretary Gopinath Palaniyappan, state ministers and legislators, participated in the protest.

The Congress has also held protests in Mysuru and several other parts of the state.

The protest demanding the CEC's resignation came in the wake of an Indian Express investigation which reported that 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.

The objections included changes to statutory voter registration Form 6 and the centralisation of control over the electoral roll database, according to the report.

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The Election Commission, however, has asserted that its official orders, decisions and administrative directions have full legal sanction, and that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations within any institution.