00:00The CEC, Gyanesh Kumar, has now come under fire in a fresh flashpoint over an Indian Express report
00:06which has come out to flag repeated objections from the two election commissioners
00:11over the special intensive revision exercise, raising questions over changes that have been made to Form 6,
00:20control of the electoral data and the way that the voter roll revision is being implemented.
00:26The opposition has mounted attack on Gyanesh Kumar, in fact, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi,
00:32set to brief the media today over the same.
00:35Top opposition leaders have launched a blistering collective assault on Gyanesh Kumar,
00:40demanding his immediate removal, legal action and the scrapping of the contentious SIR.
00:45While Rahul Gandhi has condemned the developments as Desh Droh,
00:50former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal have also added to the tirade,
00:55demanding Gyanesh Kumar's arrest, SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav has slammed the move as a conspiracy
01:01to undermine democracy, while Bihar leader of opposition Tejashvi Yadav has demanded fresh polls in the state of Bihar.
01:09On the other hand, Sriv Sena, UBT Chief Uddav Thakre and DMK Chief M.K. Stalin have said that the
01:15poll chief
01:15must be sacked to salvage the credibility of India's constitutional institutions.
01:21But the BJP, too, on their part, have come out to up the ante against the opposition.
01:27They've rejected all of the opposition's charges against the SIR process,
01:30saying the Supreme Court had upheld its legal validity multiple times.
01:34It has also said that differences during deliberations within the Election Commission
01:39is nothing but a sign of democracy,
01:41and has pointed out that the opposition won seats that it had claimed were compromised by the poll body.
02:04Well, as you know, my brother Rahul Gandhi Ji has been continuously taking up the issue of the biases
02:14and the injustice that is going on through the Election Commissions.
02:19He has repeatedly highlighted multiple issues.
02:23And now you are seeing that it is coming out in the news media as well,
02:27that Election Commissioners themselves have highlighted some of the issues to Gyanesh Kumar Ji.
02:33So I think this is an extremely serious issue for our democracy.
02:37Because if there are no elections, then where is democracy?
02:42And if the elections are unfair, and they are being rigged in any manner,
02:46and the Election Commission is assisting in that,
02:50and if the Election Commissioner himself is not only aware of it,
02:54but he is allowing it to happen,
02:56then it is a very, very serious assault on democracy.
02:59See, it is, actually, it is treachery with the nation.
03:31It is, actually, it is a very serious issue for our democracy.
03:33So I think this is, actually,
04:28He should immediately resign.
04:33All the opposition parties have fallen into the trap.
04:37The trap where they said that the election commissioner and this government was a dictatorial government.
04:43Rather I would say that this is pure democracy.
04:46Election commission of India nor any constitutional body in India is under a dictatorial rule.
04:54They are functioning in a democratic manner and of course they are upholding the democracy of this country.
05:02In a democratic manner they are saving the democracy of this country.
05:09So viewers, let's take you a little more in details as to what exactly did this report, this Indian Express
05:16report have to reveal.
05:18What were the objections that were raised by the other two election commissioners?
05:21Flashpoint 1, that's come to light.
05:26It's a new clause that was added to Form 6 which is filled by new voters.
05:31Form 6 now asks applicants if parents or grandparents are also on the SIR voter list.
05:38An EC's term change in Form 6 was unauthorized and illegal.
05:44According to the election commissioners, only government could change Form 6 by amending the rules.
05:51Flashpoint 2, centralization of the software which has voter data stored in it.
05:58The electoral registration officers denied full access to the EroNet portal itself, the EroNet portal that is.
06:07And the Ero is a statutory authority with powers to make corrections in the very voter list.
06:15Flashpoint 3, election commissioners had flagged appeals pending in the tribunals in West Bengal.
06:22In fact, they told the Supreme Court that 38 lakh appeals were pending with 22.21 lakh appeals having been
06:32that were filed by excluded voters to get back on the rolls.
06:3816.10 lakh appeals filed to delete the voters cleared by the adjugation process itself.
06:45Now Sandhu, the election commissioner asks officials who authorized the filing of the deletion appeals on behalf of the election
06:54commissioner.
06:55Both Sandhu and Vivek Joshi and the chief electoral officer were not even informed about the deletion of the appeals
07:02that were done.
07:04Number 4, two election commissioners wrote to cabinet secretary T.V. Somanathan on July 29th this year, a letter to
07:12the cabinet secretary after the IT division supervisor was removed.
07:17The removal of the IT division supervisor was also without the approval of the election commissioners.
07:23Two election commissioners set aside the changes on July 30th and they sent their note to the chief election commissioner,
07:31Gyanesh Kumar.
07:33These are the main flashpoints that we are speaking of that's been raised as objections by the election commissioner that's
07:41been revealed in this very report.
07:45Next up, the election commission rejected reports of a split within the poll panel over the SIR.
07:53Here is what the EC is yet to answer however.
07:58They have said differences are a part of normal deliberations and then final decisions were unanimous.
08:03But these key questions still remain.
08:05Why was the form 6 modified?
08:07And why were concerns reportedly raised by election commissioners?
08:13They are a part of that team that forms the election commission at the end of the day.
08:17Why was that overruled?
08:19Finally, number three, why was the electoral data centralized?
08:24That is also something that's illegal that's been pointed out.
08:27Silence on these specific issues, while we do understand the democracy and the room for debate and discussion within the
08:34election commission,
08:35but these questions still have not been answered.
08:38Silence on the specific issues could leave questions over transparency and decision making being unresolved.
08:45It could also in fact go a step further to fuel a further debate over whether adequate checks were followed
08:51during the SIR process.
08:53Because at the end of the day there were appeals that were deleted without even the election commissioners being informed
08:58about it.
09:00So where does it leave the entire situation?
09:03Big questions mounting on the election commission that they would have to be answering.
09:08And the answer cannot just be the fact that yes there is enough room for debate and discussion within our
09:16panel.
