‘Manipulated the voter rolls’: Mahua Moitra files police complaint against Gyanesh Kumar over SIR row | India News
NEW DELHI: TMC MP Mahua Moitra on Thursday filed a police complaint against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at the Parliament Street Police Station, alleging that the Election Commission “manipulated the voter rolls.“Speaking to reporters, Mahua alleged that Kumar and the Election Commission’s IT system had bypassed local officials responsible for maintaining electoral rolls.Her allegations came a day after The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders related to the SIR.“I have come today to the Parliament Street Police Station to file a complaint against chor Gyanesh Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner of India, who has indulged in criminal conduct. What is the criminal conduct? The Election Commission is made up of three Election Commissioners to maintain checks and balances. Majority decisions prevail. It has now been proven by the Indian Express investigative report yesterday that two of the three Election Commissioners, namely Mr Joshi and Mr Sandhu, dissented from Mr Gyanesh Kumar’s actions on 14 occasions in the last 10 months, and sometimes as many as four times in a single day,” Mahua said.“Very important things, such as the centralisation of the IT software, were left entirely in the hands of DG IT Seema Khanna, who was using this software to bypass local, on-ground officials. What is the rule? The rule is that in every Assembly constituency and at every booth, the local official, the ERO and the BLO, are in charge of the voter roll. What we find is that Seema Khanna and Gyanesh Kumar, by using the ECI software illegally and criminally, manipulated the voter rolls, bypassed these local officials and did not give them access to the system,” she added.Moitra also alleged that the Election Commission made changes to Form 6, which is used to register new voters, without following the required procedure.“Secondly, in terms of Form 6, Form 6 allows a person to register as a new voter. How does a new voter get enrolled by filling out Form 6? What Gyanesh Kumar did illegally was insert a new question into Form 6, which is: Are you or any of your parents or grandparents linked to the SIR, yes or no? Mr Sandhu and Mr Joshi dissented and said that only by amending the rules could you do this; you cannot simply add a question,” she said.“Nobody could answer. The CEO of West Bengal could not answer, and the Chief Election Commissioner could not answer, and lakhs and crores of new voters were left out. Today, all over India, 13 crore voters have been deleted. What will happen to their children? What will happen to their children when they turn 18? They cannot get on the rolls either. So this is criminal conduct, and they cannot hide behind Section 16 of the CEC and EC Act of 2023,” she added.Later, after filing the FIR, Mahua shared a post on X along with a copy of the complaint. “Gyanesh Chor Kumar is rogue agent who acted without consent of other 2 ECs. Disenfranchising genuine voters is not official duties. He cannot enjoy immunity. He needs to be prosecuted. Simple,” she wrote on X.According to the media report, the two Election Commissioners had objected to changes in Form 6, with Joshi and Sandhu recording that the statutory form could not be altered without amending the relevant rules. Sandhu later described the changes as “unauthorised and illegal” and called for their immediate removal.The ECI has maintained that written notes, observations and internal checks are part of normal institutional deliberations. It has also said that its official orders and decisions have full legal sanction and that final decisions, including those related to the SIR, were taken unanimously.The reported objections relate to voter registration and deletion, changes to Form 6 and centralised control of the electoral-roll database. According to the report, the two commissioners also raised concerns about access to the electoral-roll database by statutory officials.The reported differences have triggered demands from Opposition parties for action against Kumar. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP, RSS and the Election Commission had committed an act of “treason” through what he called “vote chori”.
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“Vote chori is a crime against the Indian people and a direct attack on our Constitution,” Rahul said. “The BJP, RSS and EC who organised it have committed an act of treason. Justice will be served.”Mamata Banerjee also alleged that the BJP and the EC had “looted” the West Bengal Assembly polls and demanded fresh elections in the state using the voter list that existed before the SIR.Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra defended the Election Commission, saying differences and exchanges between commissioners reflected “pure democracy” and were part of institutional deliberations.
