Opposition MPs to march against Election Commission from Parliament's Makar Dwar today
Lok Sabha
and
Rajya Sabha
are set to march from Makar Dwar in Parliament to the Election Commission office at Nirvachan Sadan on Monday.
The march will begin at 11:30 AM and proceed via Transport Bhawan.
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Earlier in the day, the Delhi Police said that no permission has been sought so far for the proposed march by the INDIA Bloc from Parliament to the Election Commission.
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On Sunday, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said that the INDIA bloc MPs had marched from the Parliament to the Election Commission's office on Monday to protest the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar and allegations of "voter fraud" during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
At a press conference, Digvijaya Singh alleged that all the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) were filling out "fake forms" in one room.
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He stated, "Rahul Gandhi put forward such facts that no one could deny... The name of one person appeared at multiple locations, including polling booths... Rahul Gandhi's demand was for electronic data of the voter list, which could be scanned using software to determine how many votes were cast on a single EPIC number... The reason for the SIR happening in Bihar was questioned. It had been thoroughly tested in 2003, which took 2 years in Bihar, but this time they wanted to do it in 1 month..."
Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha is set for a packed agenda on Monday, with multiple committee reports, ministerial statements, and significant legislative business scheduled for discussion.
The day's proceedings will begin at 11 am with questions entered in a separate list to be asked and answers given. This will be followed by the laying of papers on the table by ministers from various departments, including Gajendra Singh Shekhawat for the Ministry of Culture; Jayant Chaudhary for the Ministry of Education; Pankaj Chaudhary for the Ministry of Finance; Kirtivardhan Singh for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; and Sukanta Majumdar for Ministry of Education.
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NDTV
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Declared Dead By Poll Body, Bihar Man Visits CEO's Office To Say He Is Alive
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The Wire
24 minutes ago
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It is not that the TMC or any opposition party is advocating for foreigners in the electoral rolls. Under the Citizenship Act, 1955, the home ministry is the relevant authority and once the home ministry determines after an inquiry through the NRC or the NPR [National Population Register] that somebody is a foreigner, then the EC will remove that person. The EC cannot make that inquiry on its own. 3. If voter roll purification is to be done, how would the TMC propose that it be done? If an exercise like the SIR is to be done, all political parties should have been brought on board. This exercise should have been spread over months so that awareness is created, and political parties are involved in creating that awareness. The rush with which it is being done, given the profile of our electorate which includes the marginalised, poor and those who live in remote areas, where not everybody is highly educated, this is becoming an oppressive measure. This is not only against the constitutional mandate but also against the spirit of the constitution. 4. The opposition's march to the EC's office on August 11 was stopped and MPs were detained. The EC says they were ready to meet 30 MPs. Why couldn't a decision be taken to send a delegation of 30 MPs? The EC is not ready to listen. We decided we will march to the EC with our demands – a peaceful protest with the demand that the SIR has to stop. They give a letter one day before to say only 30 people can come to meet us. The move to not give machine-readable data, questions over a surge in votes after 5:30 pm – these are questions that have to be asked. You have negated all this and now when we have decided to come to you, you say only 30 people will come. Why will 30 people come? Who will decide the number? If the EC had bonafide concern about what we are saying, it should have been handled differently. Since you are planning to do an SIR across the country, should you have not called all political parties? The NRC in Assam was a Supreme Court-monitored exercise that continued for six years. Till today, have they notified the NRC? A process that took six years, monitored by the Supreme Court and conducted by the home ministry under the registrar general, why hasn't it still been notified? What you could not do in six years that you want to do in six months? 5. The monsoon session has been almost a washout barring the discussion on Operation Sindoor, with the government and the opposition at a stalemate over a discussion on the SIR. The government says that the EC is an independent constitutional body and cannot be discussed in parliament. How do you respond to that? We are saying that the SIR is directly impacting the democratic rights of every citizen; the concept of 'one man, one vote' is under challenge. The question is, why can't the people's concerns be debated in parliament? 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As Abhishek Banerjee has said, according to the EC's own inquiry, 65 lakh voters have been removed. So this brings into question the 2024 Lok Sabha elections also. How can this Lok Sabha continue? You cannot say that people will spend their time, money and energy proving the genuineness of their right to vote on the one hand, and the rest of us are sitting in parliament elected by these very people [on the other]. We get our mandate from people. You are disenfranchising people and you are passing Bills in parliament?
The Hindu
24 minutes ago
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