‘Investigate, don’t intimidate’: Congress on Election Commission press conference
Shortly after the Election Commission held a press conference defending the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, the Congress on Sunday asked the poll panel to “investigate” the allegations raised by Opposition parties and not to “intimidate” them.
Jairam Ramesh, the party general secretary in charge of communications, also claimed that the Election Commission stood “thoroughly exposed” for its “incompetence and blatant partisanship”.
He further described as “laughable” the statement by the Election Commission that it makes no distinction between the ruling party and the Opposition.
Earlier in the day, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar claimed that a deliberate attempt was being made to spread confusion by ignoring the ground reality of the voter roll revision.
“For EC neither anyone is Opposition nor ruling party,” Kumar said. “There is no discrimination between parties, all are the same.”
He also said that no political party had lodged objections so far after the draft roll was published on August 1. Kumar added that the main purpose of the revision exercise was to “purify” the voter list, adding that it was carried out after receiving several complaints from political parties.
However, The Hindu had quoted workers of political parties as saying on August 9 that they had filed several complaints.
Party workers had told the newspaper that when they...
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