Tezzbuzz Desk – Political controversy has intensified after the revelations of 'The Indian Express' regarding the Election Commission. The report claims that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi lodged formal objections to the commission's decisions and orders at least 14 times in the last 10 months. According to the report, both election commissioners raised the issue of some decisions being taken without their knowledge or approval and raised questions on matters related to registration of new voters, deletion and restoration of names from the voter list and software of electoral data.
Regarding this report, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Abhishek Manu Singhvi made serious allegations against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Singhvi said that CEC has 'hijacked' the Election Commission. He also demanded cancellation of the assembly elections held in Delhi and Haryana.
Singhvi alleged that decisions in the Election Commission should be taken on the basis of majority, but according to him the Chief Election Commissioner misled his colleagues. He raised questions whether the role of the two other election commissioners remained merely ceremonial and whether a single person was running the commission.
The Congress leader also raised questions regarding the changes made in Form 6. According to 'The Indian Express' report, a question related to SIR was added in Form 6 and Election Commissioner Vivek Joshi had objected to this change in May. According to the report, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu also later termed this change as 'unauthorized' and 'illegal' and asked for its immediate removal.
According to the report, both election commissioners also expressed concern about the centralization of voter data. Vivek Joshi had suggested an audit of the system, raising questions over access to the voter database and its gradual centralization. Both the commissioners later also wrote a letter to Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan regarding distribution of work related to the election IT system.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also demanded an investigation into the matter. He said that Rahul Gandhi is continuously raising this issue and if the Election Commissioners themselves have raised questions about CEC then it should be investigated.
Rahul Gandhi has also made serious allegations regarding the election process. He termed 'vote theft' as a crime against the Indian people and the Constitution and blamed BJP, RSS and the Election Commission. These are political allegations of Rahul Gandhi, which have not been independently confirmed in this report.
This entire controversy started with an investigation by 'The Indian Express', which claimed that two election commissioners lodged formal objections at least 14 times in 10 months. According to reports, objections were also filed four times in a day. These objections were related to issues like registration of new voters, deletion and restoration of names from the voter list, filing of appeals, changes in Form 6 and access to voter data.
At the same time, the Election Commission has said that decisions related to SIR will be taken unanimously. In this entire controversy, on one side there is a claim of objections lodged by two Election Commissioners, while on the other side the Commission is saying that there is consensus on the decisions.