NEW DELHI: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday refuted the opposition’s allegations of hatching a conspiracy of “vote theft” through the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.In his first press conference amid the revision exercise, the CEC said the poll body has “no opponents and no supporters” and that every political party is equal.Here are the key quotes from Gyanesh Kumar’s press conference
- You all know that as per the law, the birth of every political party takes place only through registration with the
Election Commission . So how can the EC discriminate among those very parties? For the EC, there is no ruling side or opposition side; all are equal. - For the past two decades, almost all parties have been demanding corrections in the electoral rolls, and to fulfill this very demand, the EC has started the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) from Bihar.
- In the SIR process, all voters, along with the 1.6 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) nominated by various parties, have jointly prepared a draft roll.
- On the ground, all voters, political parties, and BLOs are working together in a transparent manner. They are not only certifying but also signing and even giving video testimonials. It is a matter of serious concern that these certified documents and voices of district-level party presidents and their nominated BLAs are either not reaching their state- or national-level leaders, or the ground reality is being ignored to deliberately spread confusion.
- When more than 7 crore voters stand with the Election Commission, then neither the credibility of the EC nor that of the voters can be questioned.
- We saw a few days ago that photos of many voters were presented to the media without their permission. Allegations were made against them, they were used. Should the Election Commission share the CCTV videos of any voter including their mothers, daughters-in-law, daughters? Only those whose names are in the voter list cast their votes to elect their candidate.
- In the process of Lok Sabha elections, more than one crore employees, more than 10 lakh booth level agents, more than 20 lakh polling agents of candidates work for the elections. In such a transparent process in front of so many people, can any voter steal votes?
- Some voters alleged double voting. When asked for proof, no answer was given. Neither the Election Commission nor any voter is afraid of such false allegations. When politics is being done by targeting the voters of India by keeping a gun on the shoulder of the Election Commission, today the Election Commission wants to make it clear to everyone that the Election Commission fearlessly stood like a rock with all the voters of all sections and all religions including the poor, rich, elderly, women, youth without any discrimination, is standing and will continue to stand.
- Even after the returning officer declares the results, there is a provision in the law that within a period of 45 days, political parties can go to the Supreme Court and file an election petition to challenge the election. After this 45-day period, making such baseless allegations, be it in Kerala, Karnataka, or Bihar. When that 45-day period after the elections is over and during that period, no candidate or political party finds any irregularity, then today, after so many days, the voters and people of the country understand the intention behind making such baseless allegations.