00:00Right in the dock, the EC is presently facing these very serious charges.
00:05Election Commission voices are citing, and I quote it here,
00:09difference of opinion is natural.
00:11Election Commission is pointing to the decision that was taken by majority.
00:16ECI says differences are democratic.
00:19Discussions build consensus.
00:21ECI says no interference happened in the SIR system.
00:25So ECI forced to give a clarification as well, because the charges against them are very serious.
00:31That there is this certain misuse of authority, that they've gone ahead and gone for an SIR exercise
00:37where crawls of names have been deleted or at least sent show-cost notice,
00:41and that has completely sent a crawls of people across the country in kiosks.
00:46And that is what ECI has now spoken up.
00:49I'm going across to Ishwarya Paliwal, who's spoken to some of the Election Commission officials as well.
00:54Go ahead, Ishwarya.
00:55What are you picking, Baba?
00:57The details about what the EC is saying at this point.
01:00The issue because here is that there was dissent and there was an override on that.
01:06Well, yes, you know what we are understanding from the Election Commission.
01:09You know, very, very clearly the sources are now saying that about the Election Commissioners.
01:13And they did in fact have individual opinions on this matter.
01:17But all the decisions that ultimately were being taken were unanimous.
01:20And they were taken with the approval of the CEC, that is Gyanesh Kumar, and both the Election Commissioners.
01:26But yes, you know, we are now seeing the exposure which is being done.
01:29And most of the opposition parties also, including the PMC, over the past many months,
01:33were in fact pointing towards the fact that when they were going and meeting the Commission,
01:37it was only the CEC, Gyanesh Kumar, who in fact used to speak together to Commissioners, were not speaking.
01:42TMC, in fact, let me also tell you, Pooja,
01:44at this moment it's clear that they were the ones who in fact were speaking about the impeachment against the
01:50CEC,
01:50something that they will pursue now.
01:52The Commission, however, is maintaining that there were individual opinions.
01:56And individual opinions do exist in the ECI.
02:00But all the decisions at the end of the day, including the decision to roll out the SIR,
02:04and the ways in which SIR was being done, was being taken unanimously.
02:07and was done with the approval of both the Commissioners and the CEC.
02:11All right, appreciate you joining us.
02:13Ishwara is tracking all the latest from the Election Commission.
02:16And while the statement has come,
02:19but possibly a press conference with more questions could actually clarify the matter even more.
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