Speaking at an interaction at the Mumbai Press Club, Dipke said the CJP will hold a protest at Shivaji Park in Mumbai’s Dadar area on October 2 to press for Kumar’s resignation.
“CEC Gyanesh Kumar must resign and a criminal case should be registered against him,” he said.
Dipke said the protests would continue until Kumar steps down as the head of the poll panel. He said demonstrations would be held in Goa, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, followed by a protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi from the end of October if Kumar does not resign.
Dipke also demanded a transparent process for appointing the CEC, with civil society involved in the process. He further called for the 2025 voter list to be frozen, saying it should not be “tampered with further”.
Several Opposition parties have criticised CEC Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and demanded his resignation. The demands came after it emerged that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on at least 14 occasions over 10 months to decisions and orders, some of which they said were issued without their knowledge.
The Election Commission has, however, clarified that the three-member commission took decisions, including those related to the SIR of electoral rolls, unanimously.Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Shiv Sena (UBT) will take out a morcha against the Election Commission in Mumbai on October 4.
(With PTI inputs)
