NEW DELHI: Congress General Secretary Sachin Pilot on Friday raised three pointed questions for the Centre during the ongoing Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar. Speaking from West Champaran, Pilot said the credibility of the Election Commission was under suspicion and stressed that the people of the country would not tolerate “vote theft.”In a post on X in Hindi, Pilot said the yatra, being led by Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, was aimed at restoring public faith in democracy. “Rahul Gandhi ji has asked questions with full evidence, but the Election Commission is not responding,” he wrote, adding that votes of targeted communities were being suppressed while fake names were being added to electoral rolls.Pilot listed three key questions for the government:
- Why was the CJI removed from the selection process of the Chief Election Commission and the Home Minister included instead?
- Who decided to destroy the CCTV footage?
- When the Supreme Court ordered to provide the voter list to Congress, why was the rule changed on the same day, stating that they are not obligated to provide the voter list? Who instructed this?
CEC appointment sparks row over exclusion of CJI: Several leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Prashant Kishor, have questioned the process of appointing the new Chief Election Commissioner earlier this year. In February, the Centre named Gyanesh Kumar as CEC. The decision was taken by a selection panel comprising PM Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.Gandhi had objected to the exclusion of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) from the panel, calling it “disrespectful and discourteous”.EC ordered destruction of CCTV footage after 45 days: The directive on CCTV footage came after the EC, in June, instructed state poll officers to destroy recordings from cameras, webcasting and video of the election process within 45 days, provided the results were not challenged in court. The poll body said the move was aimed at preventing the misuse of electronic data to create “malicious narratives.”EC withheld voter data, uploaded list after SC order:The EC told Supreme Court that the Representation of the People Act and related rules do not require it to share details of the draft electoral roll such as its preparation, publication, or names of deleted voters with anyone except recognised political parties.However, within 56 hours of the Supreme Court’s directive, the Election Commission uploaded the list of 65 lakh voters who had been deleted from Bihar’s draft electoral roll.Sachin Pilot condems Patna clashes between party workers:Alongside his remarks, Pilot also condemned the violent clashes that broke out in Patna between BJP and Congress workers earlier in the day.“Today, a violent incident was carried out at the headquarters of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee. The way the opposition is being intimidated and threatened—this will never be accepted. What happened in Patna, we strongly condemn it,” he said.Party workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress clashed at the State Congress headquarters in Patna on Friday after the BJP staged a protest over alleged abuses directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his mother.Visuals shared by news agency ANI showed workers of both parties attacking each other with flags. The incident followed the circulation of a video from Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Darbhanga, where unidentified men were allegedly heard hurling abuses at the prime minister and his mother.
