Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, TMC’s Saugata Roy, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav have also been named in the plea in SC over alleged large-scale voter deletions and irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll.
Also read: ‘Resign, turn approver’: Rahul Gandhi’s message to CEC as INDIA bloc takes fight to SC
Others named in the plea include NCP-SCP leader Supriya Sule, Shiv Sena-UBT leader Sanjay Raut, CPI leader D Raja, CPI-M leader M A Baby, MP Mahua Majhi, and IUML leader E T Mohammed Basheer.
In their plea, the opposition bloc has impleaded Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, alongside the ECI. The specific grounds sought in the plea is yet to be disclosed by the petitioners.
Opposition MPs and leaders, accompanied by hundreds of supporters and activists, started their “March for Democracy” to the Supreme Court to submit a petition on their “vote chori” charge and against Gyanesh Kumar. Protesters climbed barricades near Barakhamba Road during INDIA bloc’s march.
Congress MPs Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Shashi Tharoor, Sachin Pilot and Mukul Wasnik and TMC leader Sagarika Ghosh also joined the protest march, besides activists Yogendra Yadav and Nandita Narayan and AISA chief Neha Bora.Also read: Jantar Mantar denotified as protest site, Delhi designates three new venues
The Congress leader had announced the decision to march along with other INDIA bloc leaders to the Supreme Court and file a petition against the poll panel chief, after the Chief Justice of India declined a request for meeting the LoPs on Sunday.
Addressing a press conference at the Indira Bhawan headquarters of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi asked the CEC to “turn approver” and resign as the opposition’s fight was against the bigger powers that were behind him.
“Resign, turn approver; you (Kumar) have made a mistake but you are not the mind behind the mistake,” he said. “We know Gyanesh Kumar is unable to sleep at night; I am telling him directly ‘you will not survive as CEC’.”
