NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aware of the Election Commission's IT division restricting the access of electoral registration officers to the ECINet portal, as pointed out by two election commissioners.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh claimed that the complaint of the two election commissioners had gone to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), for which the minister responsible is the prime minister himself, and it is likely that the decision was taken at his direction.
Ramesh pointed to a media report claiming that the officer about whom the two election commissioners had complained to the Cabinet secretary in July continues to be the key pivot in the Election Commission.
“Instead of action being taken against him, the officer is now overseeing the controversial IT division of the Election Commission,” Ramesh said in a post on X.
The Congress leader said the letter to the Cabinet secretary “was prompted by an order from the officer that removed oversight from the IT division to enable it to continue functioning without any transparency”.
“We now learn that since August, the officer has been given the power to oversee the IT division. So, the ECI's deceptive clarification in its press note released on September 26 was to hide the real story,” Ramesh alleged.
The two election commissioners had pointed out that the IT division was restricting the access of electoral registration officers (EROs) to the ECINet voter roll portal and overriding the statutory authority of the EROs over deletions/additions in the rolls, Ramesh said.
“The complaint reached the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), for which the minister responsible is the prime minister himself. So the prime minister is aware of all this, and it is likely taking place on his direction.
“It appears that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the prime minister himself have kept the particular officer in place to retain their centralised control over the entire system. The ‘Vote Chori’ operation is becoming clearer by the day,” Ramesh alleged.
The Congress has been questioning the functioning of the Election Commission under Gyanesh Kumar, seeking his ouster.
The allegations have been surfacing ever since a report in The Indian Express claimed that two election commissioners – Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi – had objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions and orders on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation.
Under fire over the red flags raised by the two commissioners, the EC has clarified that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution and that all its orders carry full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.