New Delhi: Seventy-three opposition members of the Rajya Sabha belonging to about 11 political parties on Friday gave a fresh notice seeking removal of chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, their second bid within weeks after their earlier larger attempts in both Houses of Parliament were rejected by the chairman and speaker, who found the notices untenable right at the scrutiny stage.
Unless not rejected similarly, the latest notice, symbolically timed right ahead of the close of the West Bengal election and in the aftermath of a recent CEC-All India Trinamool Congress showdown, can linger in the realm of procedural uncertainty for about four months till the monsoon session of Parliament. In any case, the signatories to the notice lack majority in the Upper House to achieve their goal in the event of admission of their notice. The opposition is yet to make up its mind whether a similar notice be filed in the Lok Sabha too.
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Some opposition parliamentarians said the fresh notice contains about nine charges against the CEC. These include "partisan and discriminatory conduct", "misbehaviour", conducting "mass disenfranchisement" and "partisan enforcement of model code of conduct", including overlooking opposition complaint against the Prime Minister's recent address to the nation. The notice also alleges "deliberate obstruction of investigation of electoral fraud", conducting special intensive revision of electoral rolls in a manner that helped the BJP and alleged "proximity" to the BJPAlso read: Hum AAP ke hain kaun! Why everyone leaves Arvind Kejriwal
"There are now nine specific charges against the CEC that have been documented in great detail and that simply cannot be denied or whitewashed away. His continuation is an assault on the Constitution. It is an absolute disgrace that the man continues to be in office to do the bidding of the Prime Minister and home minister," said Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh.
