Panihati, Sep 25 (IANS) West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Samik Bhattacharya, on Friday, said that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar “at least deserves a Padma Bhushan”, crediting him for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
This comes amid a political dispute after a media report claimed that two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had “objected on record” to several decisions taken by the poll panel, including those related to SIR, allegedly without their knowledge.
Speaking to reporters in Panihati near Kolkata, Bhattacharya hit back at the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, a day after the latter questioned the “absence of anti-incumbency” during the BJP regime and advised Gyanesh Kumar to resign and turn an “approver”.
“The fact is, even the Congress party itself doesn’t heed Rahul Gandhi’s words; they don’t take him seriously,” the Bengal BJP chief remarked.
“Gyanesh Kumar deserves, at the very least, the Padma Bhushan. The people of West Bengal are delighted that, after so long, intimidation was kept at bay. There were no incidents of murder, and people were actually allowed to cast their votes (during the Assembly polls),” he added.
The Padma Bhushan is India’s third-highest civilian award.
Further, Samik Bhattacharya credited CEC Kumar with removing “Bangladeshi infiltrators” from Bengal’s electoral rolls.
“In a border state like this, Gyanesh Kumar took the initiative to remove the names of Bangladeshi infiltrators from the voter lists,” he said.
He added: “The people of West Bengal have rarely witnessed an election like this,” while asserting that the general public of the state fully supports Gyanesh Kumar.
Opposition parties, including the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), have repeatedly demanded Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, with the CJP warning of nationwide agitation from October 2 if the CEC fails to do so.
Moreover, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, while replying to a question during a press conference a day before, had questioned why the BJP is defending the Chief Election Commissioner, “since he is not a leader of the party”.
Earlier on Friday, Congress leaders and workers held protests in several states across the country, reiterating their demand for the CEC’s resignation and calling for his immediate arrest.
–IANS
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