BRS asks CEC to quit as SIR enters final stretch
The party says Telangana’s voter-roll revision needs more scrutiny. The ECI schedule gives voters until September 28 to object.
The claims-and-objections window closes on September 28, with the final roll scheduled for October 1.
The BRS has asked Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign, as Telangana’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls enters its final claims-and-objections days. The party made the demand at a Hyderabad press conference on September 26, with former MP B. Vinod Kumar saying, “The BRS strongly asserts that the CEC should step down.”
The Election Commission’s schedule says objections can be filed until September 28, with the final roll due on October 1. The BRS has raised concerns over the identification of duplicate and other entries, access to the 2002 roll, and the time available for verification. It has also alleged that votes were unfairly deleted, including in constituencies won by the party. The material available does not establish the scale or location of any such deletions. Suspected duplicate registrations are not confirmed deletions; even the BRS’s earlier representation described them as requiring statutory verification.
Vinod Kumar asked the Prime Minister to initiate removal proceedings and said the Supreme Court should take suo motu cognisance if the CEC did not resign. Article 324(5), however, says the CEC can be removed only through the procedure and grounds applicable to a Supreme Court judge. The ECI has not publicly validated the BRS’s mass-deletion allegation in the material reviewed. The roll is still on schedule. The paperwork, unlike the political thunder, has a date.