Chandigarh: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday staged a protest outside the Punjab chief electoral officer’s office in Sector 17, Chandigarh, demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The demonstration was held in support of the Cockroach Janata Party’s (CJP) protest against Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Senior AAP leader and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, Punjab cabinet minister Harpal Singh Cheema and several other party leaders participated in the demonstration. They raised slogans against the BJP-led central government and called for Kumar’s removal.
Chandigarh Police detained the protesting AAP leaders and took them to the Sector 17 police station.
During the protest, Sisodia and Cheema criticised the Election Commission’s voter list revision exercise, alleging that it was being used to manipulate electoral outcomes at the Centre’s behest.
They claimed that more than 13 crore voter entries had been removed across the country under the SIR exercise and said the party would not accept what they described as an attempt to undermine voters’ rights.
The allegations were made by AAP leaders during the demonstration and have not been independently established.
