Prayagraj, 28 Sept (HS): The Congress party organised a protest march

on Monday demanding the dismissal and arrest of Chief Election Commissioner

Gyanesh Kumar. Following the call of the national and state leadership, the

City Congress Committee and District Congress Yamunapar, under the leadership

of Fuzail Hashmi, gathered at the Mahatma Gandhi statue site . A meeting was

held before the march carried out.

Addressing the gathering, MP Ujjwal Raman Singh alleged that through the

SIR exercise, Gyanesh Kumar had facilitated the deletion of names of more than

13 crore voters from electoral rolls. He said that the Election Commission has

become an institution that is gradually losing public confidence. He further

alleged that Gyanesh Kumar, acting at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra

Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, took several decisions which, according to

the Congress, were unconstitutional and beyond the legal authority of the

Election Commission.

Former MLA Anugrah Narayan Singh said that Gyanesh Kumar should apologise

to the country over alleged irregularities through SIR and resign from his

post. The congressmen also referred to Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's

various press conferences on SIR, stating that he had presented facts and

evidence before the country. Congress workers demanded that elections which

they alleged were “stolen” in West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Haryana and

other states be conducted afresh.

The police stopped the protest march from proceeding further, citing the

absence of administrative permission for the march. Angered by this, Congress

workers burnt effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah

and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at Balson Chauraha. The protest

march was later concluded at Anand Bhawan.

District Congress President Ashok Patel, Sudhakar Tiwari, Kishore

Varshney, Harikesh Tripathi, Sanjay Tiwari, Mukund Tiwari, Pervez Ansari, Vijay

Mishra, Arshad Ali, Alpana Nishad, Nayan Kushwaha, Anup Tripathi, Afroz Ahmad,

Manju Sant, Alok Pandey, Shashi Prakash, Shahnawaz Qureshi, Rajesh Rakesh, Anil

Pandey, Ram Manohar Saroj, Vinay Dubey, Manas Shukla, Rakesh Srivastava,

Madhavi Rai, Tabrez Ahmad, Pratima Tripathi, Nafees Qureshi, Ravindra Singh,

Moh. Haseen, Jitendra Nayak, Rakesh Patel, Jitendra Rai, Kamal Ali, Nasreen

Bano, Devendra Kumar, Suboor Khan, Jitendra Rai, Sheikh Ahmad, Altmash,

Jaiprakash, Zahid, Neta, Abid Khan, among hundreds of others, were present.

Hindusthan Samachar / Abhishek Awasthi