Prayagraj: At an emergency meeting of the City Congress Committee members, a demand was raised for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The meeting was held in the afternoon at the party office in Chowk under the president ship of City Congress Committee President Fuzail Hashmi. Party workers mail a letter addressed to President Droupadi Murmu, the Congress leaders alleged that CEC Gyanesh Kumar has been acting as a “puppet” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. They alleged that through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the names of more than 13 crore voters were arbitrarily deleted from the draft electoral rolls.

The leaders further pointed out that the two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had formally recorded objections in writing more than 14 times over a period of 10 months regarding various decisions and orders. These reported objections have also been highlighted in recent media reports.

Congress leaders said that the reported dissent within the Election Commission had exposed serious concerns regarding the functioning of the electoral process. They urged the Supreme Court to take cognisance of the matter and demanded that the SIR exercise be stopped immediately.

The meeting also endorsed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s campaign on the issue of alleged “vote theft”, stating that the party considers the matter to be an attack on the Constitution and an act of treason. Congress leaders also demanded that Assembly elections held in West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana and other states be conducted afresh.

Kishore Varshney, Harikesh Tripathi, Parvez Siddiqui, Sushmita Yadav, Afroz Ahmad, Manas Shukla, Arshad Ali, Anup Tripathi, Ishtiyaq Ahmad, Manoj Pasi, spokesperson Shahnawaz Qureshi, Shashi Prakash, Tabrez Ahmad, Pratima Tripathi, Ram Manohar Saroj, Nafis Qureshi, Sachin Kushwaha, Sheesh Ahmad, Bharat Lal, Nasreen Bano, Rakesh Patel, Brijesh Gautam, Kameshwar Sonkar and others.