Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday accused the BJP-led Centre of taking away people’s voting rights through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and demanded Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.
Speaking to reporters in Thiruvananthapuram, Tharoor said the Congress would hold a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on November 1 to demand accountability over the exercise. Police permission had been obtained, he said.
Tharoor claimed that more than 90 lakh names were deleted from West Bengal’s electoral rolls ahead of the Assembly elections, while appeals from only about 82,000 people were heard.
“Of those appeals, 91 per cent were found to be of people whose names should not have been deleted. If 91 per cent of voters were wrongly deleted, then what was the point of the SIR?” he asked.
He also questioned the forms used during the exercise and the decision to use the 2002 electoral rolls as the basis for revision.
“Why was Form 6 removed? Why was there mass filing of Form 7? On what basis did they make the 2002 electoral list the foundation? Elections have been held in the country for decades, but such a problem has never occurred in the past,” he said.
“All these problems are because of this Election Commission,” he added.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said Kumar should resign over his role in the SIR exercise.
Tharoor said he had not forced anyone to vote for a particular candidate or party and that every eligible voter should be free to choose.
“All we want is that people should be able to vote according to their wishes. Once free and fair polls are held, the people can decide who should win,” he said.
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