New Delhi, Aug 17: The Election Commission on Sunday dismissed charges of ‘vote chori’, levelled by the Congress party, saying that the poll panel stands firm with the voters like a rock and will never compromise with the electoral process and protocols, even in the face of adversity.

Addressing a press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar also rejected allegations of any bias in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in Bihar and said that its doors are open for all political parties.

He said that the EC doesn’t discriminate among political parties and no matter who belongs to which party, it will not step back from its constitutional obligation.

“All the political parties, booth-level officers are working on the ground in a transparent manner. They are verifying documents and also giving video testimonials. It is a matter of serious concern that these verified documents, testimonials of district presidents of political parties and BLOs nominated by them, are either not reaching their own state-level or national-level leaders or an attempt is being made to mislead them by ignoring the ground reality,” he said.

The CEC also objected to the public display of photos of many voters, apparently referring to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s special press conference, where he cried foul about alleged malpractices, and stated that this amounted to a breach of privacy as stipulated in the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling.

CEC Gyanesh Kumar further said that attempts were being made to misguide the voters and put the poll panel in a bad light by making fake and mischievous allegations.

He said that the vote theft charge is completely false and baseless, and claimed that attempts were being made to spread misinformation about the SIR drive in Bihar.

He said that the Election Commission won’t get deterred by such tactics and asserted that it stands like a rock with the voters.

“When politics is being done by keeping a gun on the shoulders of the Election Commission, we want to make it clear that we won’t get intimated by such attempts and the EC fearlessly stands like a rock with all the voters pertaining to all sections and all religions including the poor, rich, elderly, women, youth without any discrimination," he stated.

(IANS)

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