Mamata Banerjee arrived in Delhi for an INDIA bloc meeting, calling CEC Gyanesh Kumar 'Vanish Kumar' and accusing him of cheating. The Congress Working Committee also demanded the CEC's resignation over alleged electoral irregularities.

Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday arrived in New Delhi to attend the INDIA bloc meeting scheduled to be held on September 30 (Wednesday). Speaking to the media, Mamata clarified that the opposition target is the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, who she said has cheated the public. "We have come here for the INDIA bloc meeting...Our target is the Chief Election Commissioner and his entire software team, who cheated the public...We have been calling him 'Vanish Kumar' (CEC Gyanesh Kumar),” she said.

Banerjee is set to attend the INDIA bloc meeting in Delhi on Wednesday, where opposition leaders are likely to deliberate on a proposed nationwide protest over allegations of electoral irregularities. The political row intensified following an investigative report by The Indian Express, which said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months regarding decisions and procedures linked to the SIR exercise. Meanwhile, the Election Commission has rejected the suggestion that the reported objections represented institutional dissent, maintaining that decisions related to SIR were taken with the unanimous approval of the Commission.

Congress Demands CEC's Resignation

The Congress party held its Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in New Delhi today, where key leaders including Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge, Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, senior leader Sonia Gandhi, among others participated. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Tuesday passed a set of resolutions at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters, demanding the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, suspension of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and restoration of 13 crore 30 lakh names that the party claims have been removed from the rolls.

The CWC said it met to deliberate on what it described as a "grave danger to our democracy" posed by reports alleging the capture of the electoral process by the RSS-BJP with the alleged support of the Election Commission of India (ECI) under the current CEC. The party said the developments vindicated Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's warnings about what it termed "Vote Chori", and cited his concerns over selective enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct, the integrity of EVMs, additions and deletions from electoral rolls, the changed process for appointing the CEC and the grant of lifelong immunity to the CEC. (ANI)

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