Palakkad (Keralam) [India], September 25 : Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary MA Baby on Friday said the INDIA bloc should come together on the issue of the Election Commission amid the ongoing row over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, adding that the opposition alliance will have to decide its future course of action, including the possibility of an impeachment notice against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.
Baby's remarks came as the Opposition parties announced a nationwide protest against the Election Commission, beginning from September 26 and continuing till October 2.
Speaking to ANI, MA Baby said, "We have to sit as INDIA bloc...we have given a call for a nationwide protest commencing from tomorrow (September 26) up to October 2...when we on our own would organise programs throughout the country, we want the entire opposition to come together on this issue, for which the INDI bloc has to take a call. We are in consultation with each other."
"If Gyanesh Kumar is not resigning, showing some sense of accountability, then we will have to think about other avenues. One is an impeachment notice, and another is agitation," he added.
Furthermore, CPI National Council Secretary Binoy Viswam also criticised the Election Commission, saying democratic parties were within their rights to protest against what he alleged was the poll body's functioning.
"It is the duty of the democratic parties to call for a protest because the Election Commission is behaving as a tool in the hands of the BJP governments. Its primary task is to maintain and make sure that elections are conducted in a free and fair manner. To control it, to supervise it, is their duty, but they are forgetting that duty," Viswam told ANI.
"That's why the left parties have made a call for a protest. This is a natural reaction," he added.
The developments come amid opposition criticism following an Indian Express report claiming that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months regarding decisions and procedures linked to electoral rolls and database access.
Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi a day earlier demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the SIR row while addressing a press conference.
Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Friday backed Rahul Gandhi's demand and alleged that the electoral roll revision exercise was being used for political purposes.
Speaking to reporters, Shivakumar said, "We are living in the largest democratic country; this is not a dictatorship. No one is satisfied with this SIR. SIR should be done, no doubt about it, but the way it is being used politically is very wrong. So we are asking them to just give rights to everyone who is eligible."
Congress state units staged protests demanding Kumar's resignation across several states on Friday, including Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur.
However, the Election Commission rejected the characterisation of the objections as institutional dissent, stating that operational queries, internal feedback and administrative suggestions are part of the normal functioning of a multi-member constitutional body. The poll body has maintained that all final decisions related to SIR were taken unanimously.