Venugopal targets Centre over Gyanesh Kumar, vows to continue electoral reforms fight
Alappuzha (Kerala): The desperation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to protect Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar will hasten their downfall, AICC General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said here on Saturday.
He accused the Prime Minister of being rattled by the Opposition’s protests and said the government was resorting to measures such as closing metro stations to prevent protesters from reaching their destinations.
The Congress and the INDIA bloc would continue their fight to protect the voting rights of the people until the electoral process was made free, fair and transparent, Venugopal said.
The INDIA bloc had met the President and conveyed its concerns over the issue. He said the opposition parties have also decided to meet the Chief Justice of India.
Venugopal said the struggle would continue until the country’s democratic electoral system was made free of flaws. He accused the Centre of attempting to shield Kumar instead of addressing concerns over the functioning of the electoral process.
Turning to Kerala’s long-pending demand for an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Venugopal launched an attack on the Centre and the BJP for denying the state the premier medical institution.
He said the reasons cited by the Centre for not sanctioning AIIMS in Kerala had no sound basis when compared with the circumstances in which similar institutions were approved in other parts of the country.
The BJP’s state unit should be disbanded if it believed Kerala did not deserve an AIIMS, he said, questioning the party’s commitment to the state.
Venugopal recalled that when he raised the issue in Parliament in 2015, the then Union Health Minister had assured him that AIIMS would be sanctioned for Kerala the following year.
However, the assurance remained unfulfilled even after several years.
He expressed hope that the Centre would sanction the institution within the next two years. If the BJP government failed to do so, an INDIA bloc government at the Centre would ensure that Kerala received AIIMS, he said.
On a question about a court order directing the registration of an FIR against Opposition leader Pinarayi Vijayan, Venugopal said the law and court orders were equally applicable to everyone.
He also said the Congress had approached the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Kerala with due vigilance.
Referring to the controversy over the BJP’s lotus symbol appearing on the Election Commission’s letterhead, he raised concerns over the neutrality of the electoral machinery.