Opposition unites against CEC

New Delhi: The Opposition INDIA bloc has called a meeting at the Constitution Club of India in New Delhi on September 30 to finalise its strategy on a removal motion against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.

The meeting may collect signatures on the proposed motion. It would be the Opposition's third such attempt, coming after a report revealing internal disagreements in the ECI over the controversial Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls and related issues. The two other commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, recorded their objections 14 times in 10 months, the report said on September 23. The Opposition parties led by the Congress are now expected to step up their demand for Gyanesh Kumar's resignation and an independent inquiry into the Election Commission's decisions, and to draw up a roadmap for a nationwide agitation. The meeting came after Trinamool Congress founder Mamata Banerjee spoke at length over the phone to Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha) and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary MA Baby, who proposed an immediate huddle to frame a strategy, sources said. The leaders then settled on September 30 as the date, it is learnt. The developments have brought the TMC and the CPI(M), bitter political rivals in West Bengal, on the same page on the EC issue, though they have earlier sat together as part of the INDIA bloc at least at the national level. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, TMC's Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray are among those expected to attend, along with leaders of other constituent parties, sources said.

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