Ranchi: JMM on Wednesday demanded Supreme Court’s intervention and the dismissal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar after reports that election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised written objections 14 times over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.JMM central general secretary Vinod Kumar Pandey said EC could not be allowed to function as a “one-man show”. “If two election commissioners repeatedly register written objections and decisions continue to be taken, questions inevitably arise: who was actually running the commission?” he said.Pandey alleged that software centralisation and voter deletions undermined democracy, stressing that electoral rolls were directly linked to citizens’ rights. He said the issue was not merely an administrative disagreement but concerned the institutional independence, transparency and credibility of the poll panel. The commission, however, has said that decisions on the matter were unanimous.Health minister and Jamtara Congress MLA Irfan Ansari also demanded an immediate halt to the SIR process in Jharkhand and the dismissal of CEC. Questioning why the objections and suggestions of the two election commissioners were not made public, Ansari said concerns over alleged political influence in the poll panel could not be ignored.Citing controversies surrounding the SIR exercise in Bihar and elsewhere, Ansari said the re-addition of names after elections had raised doubts over the basis and objective of the initial deletions. He alleged that poor and marginalised people were being forced to leave their livelihoods to arrange documents and complete forms and verification procedures.“The SIR process in Jharkhand must be halted immediately and a transparent review of the entire matter conducted,” Ansari said, warning that a democratic agitation would be intensified if Union govt and EC failed to respond to the demands.
