Priyanka Chaturvedi says EC silent on its own commissioners' doubts as removal push gathers

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi on Friday accused the Election Commission of staying silent while two of its own members questioned how the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was being run, and backed a fresh attempt to remove Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar through Parliament.

The commission, she said, had not held a press conference or taken questions since putting out its statement. “These concerns have come from within the Election Commission itself,” she said, pointing to the objections of Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi over additions and deletions in the rolls and the handling of Forms 6 and 7. The opposition, she noted, had not been the first to raise them.

The removal route

Chaturvedi said any motion to remove the CEC should follow parliamentary procedure, as it had in the case of former Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma, and said she hoped Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla would act according to the rules.

Birla had already set out his position on Thursday. Asked at a briefing in New Delhi about a possible impeachment motion against Kumar, he said: “If any fresh notice comes, we will see and examine it accordingly under rules and procedures.” He added that “everyone has the right to express their views in a democracy”, but said placards and sloganeering had no place in one.

The opposition has tried twice before. Its first set of removal notices was rejected in both Houses, and the second is still pending in the Rajya Sabha. A CEC can be removed only in the way a Supreme Court judge is, which needs a majority of each House’s total membership and two-thirds of the members present and voting.

The campaign gained fresh energy after it was reported that Sandhu and Joshi had objected on record at least 14 times in 10 months to SIR decisions they said were taken without their knowledge. The commission has said differing views are a normal part of its deliberations and that its orders follow the law.

Chaturvedi also warned the BJP that what it did to the opposition today could one day be done to it. “Questions will be raised when you remove voters who would vote against you through SIR,” she said. Change of government, she added, should come only through the vote: “A change of government is a process in every democracy. However, this depends on the functioning of a robust Election Commission.”

Goa’s 10-day deadline

In Panaji, the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee has gone a step further. Its president, Girish Chodankar, handed Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Goel a representation on Thursday demanding that the SIR be withdrawn within 10 days, failing which the party would go to the High Court.

Chodankar said 1,39,634 names, about 11.84% of Goa’s electorate, had been deleted, many without notice or a hearing, and that the revision broke Sections 21 and 22 of the Representation of the People Act. “Guidelines cannot override the Act,” he said. Neither the commission nor the Goa CEO has responded publicly.