Wayanad, Sep 26 (IANS) Congress general secretary and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, asserting that the legal safeguards available to the CEC should be removed.Speaking to the media during her visit to Wayanad, Priyanka said the Opposition INDIA bloc was united on the issue. She alleged that the developments surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls amounted to an attack on the Constitution and the democratic process.“The immediate demand is that Kumar should resign. We are all together. The INDIA bloc is united. Whatever is going on is anti‑constitutional,” she said.Priyanka said she strongly believed that the safeguards protecting the Chief Election Commissioner should be removed in cases involving alleged illegal acts. She added that the CEC should be tried if it was established that he had knowingly allowed violations of the electoral process.

Her remarks came amid controversy over reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on several occasions to decisions relating to the SIR exercise and electoral‑roll procedures. The Election Commission has rejected suggestions of a split within the poll panel, maintaining that its decisions, including those concerning SIR, were unanimous.Priyanka alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was protecting both the CEC and the party leadership.“The BJP is protecting the leadership and the CEC. The leadership has given full support to this man, the CEC,” she said.She had earlier alleged that the reported deletion of around 13 crore names from electoral rolls, if established as unlawful, would constitute a criminal act against democracy and the Constitution. She also said that anyone who knowingly interfered with the democratic electoral process should face criminal prosecution.Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal also stepped up the attack, warning of a massive protest against the CEC. Describing Kumar in highly critical terms, Venugopal said it was a matter of shame that he had been a Kerala‑cadre official. “This is the biggest earthquake. If democracy is threatened, this government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are illegitimate,” Venugopal said.

He questioned the Centre’s silence over the allegations and said the BJP‑led government owed an explanation to the people. Venugopal also pointed to the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Kerala and said he owed a reply at a time when, according to him, democracy was being threatened.The Congress leaders’ statements come against the backdrop of an escalating political confrontation over the SIR exercise and allegations of irregularities in preparing and revising electoral rolls.The Election Commission has maintained that differing views and observations during internal deliberations are part of the institutional process and that its final decisions have been unanimous.Priyanka, however, insisted that the issue could not be treated as a routine administrative dispute, arguing that the integrity of the electoral process was central to the functioning of democracy.

/ IANS