New Delhi [India], August 18 : Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant hit out at Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over unanswered questions regarding the 70 lakh new voters, whom the opposition parties have alleged were added within months after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
"It seemed like a BJP spokesperson was holding the presser," Sawant further attacked the CEC while addressing a press conference at the Constitution Club of India.
Labelling the behaviour of CEC Kumar as "whimsical and deranged," the UBT Sena MP said that it was his party that had been significantly affected due to the alleged discrepancies in the previous elections.
"If anyone who has been affected due to this (vote theft) is Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray's Shiv Sena. The whimsical behaviour of the CEC...I said whimsical, but it is vikshipt (deranged). We have constantly demanded answers on the 70 lakh new additional voters. The MVA performed well in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections," Sawant, the UBT Sena MP from Mumbai South Lok Sabha constituency, said.
He further charged the Election Commission of India (ECI) with refusing to provide CCTV recordings, given the suspicion regarding lakhs of new voters casting their votes in the Maharashtra assembly elections.
"After five months in the Maharashtra assembly elections, after 5:00 in the evening, over 46 lakh new voters voted. We demanded CCTV for that. However, they refused while citing the privacy and security of women voters. What is the argument about privacy here?" Sawant said.
"Their response should make us understand that EC is defending the BJP. Till today, they haven't issued clarifications on questions raised regarding the 70 lakh additional voters," he added.
Meanwhile, Congress MP and Deputy Leader of Opposition Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi on Monday lambasted the Election Commission of India (ECI) for "evading" accountability and questions being raised by the opposition regarding the "hurried" conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.
Alleging that the EC was operating under officials who remain "biased," Gogoi pointed out that the constitutional body didn't take different political parties into confidence before conducting the SIR drive in Bihar.
The INDIA bloc leaders held a press conference after CEC Kumar on Sunday refuted all the recent "vote theft" claims made by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi. He termed allegations of bias by the Leader of Opposition (LoP) Lok Sabha an "insult" to the Indian Constitution.
The CEC also asked Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to either furnish a signed affidavit or apologise to the nation for his remarks. "An affidavit will have to be given, or an apology should be made to the country. Teesra koi vikalp nahi (There is no third option.) If the affidavit is not received within seven days, it means that all these allegations are baseless."
However, Rahul Gandhi hit back at the CEC Kumar, alleging that the ECI is asking for an affidavit from him but doesn't from BJP MP Anurag Thakur when he makes the same allegations.
"The Election Commission asks for an affidavit from me. But when Anurag Thakur says the same thing that I am saying, it does not ask for an affidavit from him," Gandhi said.