KPCC orders BLAs to ensure SIR did not disenfranchise voters

The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s (KPCC) Political Affairs Committee connected Wednesday decided to cooperate with the Election Commission of India’s (EC) Special Intensive Review (SIR) of the voters’ list. 

KPCC president Sunny Joseph, MLA, said astatine a property league that the enactment would guarantee its block-level agents (BLAs) afloat cooperate with the EC’s artifact level officers (BLO) to forestall the SIR from disfranchising morganatic voters. 

The Political Affairs Committee reportedly concluded that non-cooperation with the SIR could enactment to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition’s disadvantage. 

However, it powerfully opposed the EC’s determination to clasp the SIT successful Kerala simultaneously with the section assemblage polls. Mr. Joseph said MLAs and MPs, including AICC wide caput K.C. Venugopal, had to capable caller forms and acquisition the laborious process of enrolling themselves successful the EC’s voters’ list. He said the EC’s determination to clasp the SIR was manifestly anti-democratic and politically calibrated to vantage the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. 

The Congress is mulling penning to the ECI to widen the play of the SIR by different period truthful that the workout becomes much transparent and escaped of glitches, said a enactment insider.

Mr. Joseph said the Congress would organise protestation marches astatine each wards connected November 17 (the archetypal time of the Malayalam period of Vrishickam), which marks the opening of the yearly Sabarimala Mandalam-Makaravilakku pilgrimage season. 

“We volition clasp supplication meetings and march with lit lamps to request Devaswom Minister V.N. Vasavan’s resignation concerning authoritative collusion successful the theft of invaluable artefacts from the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple,“ helium said. 

Mr. Joseph said the CPI(M) had nary prime but to sanction erstwhile Chief Secretary K. Jayakumar arsenic the Travancore Devaswom Board president. “The authorities could not electorally spend to elevate a CPI(M)’s governmental nominee to the apical station successful the run-up to the section assemblage polls,” helium said. 

Mr. Joseph said the UDF had unanimously completed seat-sharing talks. “The UDF would code the insignificant issues successful immoderate wards successful Wayanad,” helium said. 

AICC wide caput successful complaint of Kerala Deepa Dasmunshi, Mr. Venugopal, Ramesh Chennithala, K. Muraleedharan, Congress MLAs and MPs, KPCC moving presidents, and different elder leaders participated successful the meeting. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan’s bureau had announced that doctors had advised him to instrumentality 2 days of remainder pursuing a insignificant illness.