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Odisha Congress President Bhakta Charan Das was detained by police along with party workers during a sit-in protest outside the Chief Electoral Officer's office in Bhubaneswar on Friday, where the protesters demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the electoral process.
Das was staging a peaceful sit-in on a footpath and had said that the protest would continue until Gyanesh Kumar was removed from his post. During the demonstration, police personnel arrived at the spot and detained Das. Congress supporters and workers who opposed the police action and tried to resist the detention were also taken into custody. The protesters were subsequently taken away from the site in police vehicles. Before being taken away, Das said that the police action would not silence their movement and asserted that they would continue their protest wherever the authorities took them. The protest was held by Odisha Congress workers outside the CEO office over allegations of vote irregularities. The protesters also demanded the removal of CEC Gyanesh Kumar from his post. This came amid a political row over the SIR exercise following an Indian Express report that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months concerning decisions and procedures related to electoral rolls and database access. Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee Vice President Santosh Singh Saluja said that Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had consistently raised the issue and claimed that a report had subsequently supported the allegations. "India's Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, has consistently raised this issue. While people previously dismissed this as mere rhetoric following electoral defeats, a report revealed the truth...approximately 14 per cent of the electorate were deleted by Gyanesh Kumar acting alone, affecting six states, including Bihar, West Bengal, Haryana, and Maharashtra," Saluja told ANI. He further alleged that 27 lakh votes were not included in West Bengal despite a Supreme Court order before the election. "Notably, even though the Supreme Court had ordered the inclusion of 27 lakh votes in West Bengal before the election, they were never addeda failure that contributed to the defeat of Mamata Banerjee's TMC," he said. Saluja said the demand for the removal of the CEC was now being raised by opposition parties across the country. "Today, the demand raised by Rahul Gandhi is being echoed by the Leader of the Opposition and opposition parties across the country...a meeting is being held here under the leadership of Bhakta Charan Das, following which a memorandum will be submitted to the CEC of Odisha; it will demand the immediate removal of the Chief Election Commissioner from his post and his subsequent arrest," he said. The protesters later said they would continue their agitation over the issue. (ANI)
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