Congress slams CEC Gyanesh Kumar over SIR voter ‘deletions’

Guwahati: All India Congress Committee (AICC) spokesperson Dr Ajay Upadhyay on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that the deletion of 13 crore voters’ names had raised serious questions about the Election Commission’s impartiality.

Talking to reporters here, Upadhyay claimed that objections raised by two Election Commissioners over the exercise had exposed alleged irregularities in the voter revision process. He accused Kumar of working in the interests of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and alleged that the exercise was aimed at helping the party form governments.

“The way two Commissioners inside the Election Commission have raised objections that in the name of SIR, names of 13 crore voters have been deleted, this itself proves that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is a servant of the BJP,” Upadhyay said.

He further alleged that the Chief Election Commissioner was acting in the BJP’s interests rather than functioning as an impartial constitutional authority.

The Congress spokesperson also linked the controversy over electoral rolls to what he described as the government's broader failures in addressing public concerns, including unemployment, rising prices and examination paper leaks.

According to Upadhyay, young people had been compelled to take to the streets to protest against these issues, reflecting growing public dissatisfaction with the government. “If a government is formed by stealing votes, that government does nothing good for the people,” he alleged, adding that the government had failed across several sectors.

Upadhyay further accused the authorities of deploying the police administration extensively to suppress protests. He claimed that a large police presence had been put in place at various locations to prevent demonstrators from continuing their agitation.

“Nobody has faith in the government now,” he said, alleging that the authorities were using police deployment to curb what he described as legitimate public protests.

The Congress leader's remarks come amid continuing political debates over electoral roll revisions and the functioning of the Election Commission.

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