Firozpur, September 28 (Daily Kiran) : Thousands of Congress party members gathered in Firozpur on Monday to protest against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. The demonstrators accused him of undermining the democratic and electoral processes in the country and called for his resignation and arrest.
During the protest, Congress activists burned effigies of Gyanesh Kumar to express their anger. Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Warring claimed that the electoral process had deteriorated under Kumar’s leadership. He alleged that the names of 13.8 crore voters were removed from the electoral rolls, depriving them of their right to vote.
Warring pointed to election results from Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana, arguing that they did not reflect the ground realities or public sentiment. He accused the Election Commission of colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), asserting that voters viewed unfavorably by the BJP were being removed from the lists.
He recalled that Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, raised similar concerns three years ago, only to be dismissed by the Election Commission at the time. Warring noted that now Election Commissioners Sukbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi have acknowledged issues that Gandhi had highlighted.
The Punjab Congress leader urged party workers to remain vigilant about the removal of names from the electoral rolls. He alleged that the special intensive revision of voter lists had become a routine practice to benefit the BJP, and claimed that approximately 2 million votes had already been removed in Punjab, with numbers likely to rise.
Warring also criticized the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab, likening it to the BJP, and accused it of influencing municipal election results. He raised concerns about the increasing criminalization of politics in the state, warning that if the current trend continues, candidates with serious criminal backgrounds, like Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and Gurpreet Sekhon, may soon be contesting elections.
He further accused Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Sukhbir Singh Badal of fostering gangster culture in the state. Warring alleged that Mann was yielding to Delhi leaders, claiming that ten government bungalows meant for ministers were being allocated to unauthorized individuals from Delhi and Rajasthan, leaving state ministers to stay in guest houses.
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