New Delhi: The Congress party, on Saturday, slammed the Central Government for Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and fellow Commissioners Rajiv Kumar and Anoop Chandra Pandey attending “informal interaction” with the Prime Minister’s Office by calling it "ridiculous" and "unfortunate".
While speaking to the media, Congress General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP KC Venugopal said, "The entire system of democracy is getting hijacked by this Modi government. The concept of democracy itself has been distorted. The role of EC is very clear. As an independent organization, they have to conduct free and fair elections. How can an independent organization attend a meeting at PMO? This is totally ridiculous,"
He further added, "Instead of going to the Election Commission, they are calling the Election Commission to PMO. The message is very clear. This Election Commission is also becoming a department of Indian Government. This is very unfortunate."
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As per a recent report, the EC received an unusually worded letter from an official of the Law Ministry – the administrative Ministry of the poll panel – that Principal Secretary to PM, P K Mishra, will “chair a meeting” on a common electoral roll and “expects CEC” to be present.
On Friday, the Opposition had also demanded in the Lok Sabha to discuss “autonomy of institutions being compromised” under the BJP-led government.
Congress MP Jothimani said to ETV Bharat, "The Election Commission of India is the highest authority in the country for holding elections. It is supposed to be an independent organization. They should not go to government offices to attend meetings. The problem with this government is that they want to control everything. In the name of democracy, they are running a despotic rule. But the people of this country will surely teach them a lesson."
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Cat is out of the bag!
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 17, 2021 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
What was whispered till now is a fact.
PMO summoning ECI was unheard of in independent India. Treating EC as a subservient tool is yet another low in Modi Govt’s record of destroying every institution.https://t.co/Vk9QtSSUfI
">Cat is out of the bag!
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 17, 2021
What was whispered till now is a fact.
PMO summoning ECI was unheard of in independent India. Treating EC as a subservient tool is yet another low in Modi Govt’s record of destroying every institution.https://t.co/Vk9QtSSUfICat is out of the bag!
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 17, 2021
What was whispered till now is a fact.
PMO summoning ECI was unheard of in independent India. Treating EC as a subservient tool is yet another low in Modi Govt’s record of destroying every institution.https://t.co/Vk9QtSSUfI
Similarly, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala had also tweeted over the matter yesterday, stating, "Cat is out of the bag! What was whispered till now is a fact. PMO summoning ECI was unheard of in independent India. Treating EC as a subservient tool is yet another low in Modi Govt’s record of destroying every institution."
