Stepping up its attack on the Election Commission, the Congress on Sunday said the poll panel’s proposed measures related to SIR are an admission that the exercise has been a “disaster” and asserted that the “piecemeal measures for deleted or at-risk voters will do little to mitigate this mass disenfranchisement”.

The poll panel on Saturday sought to address several concerns raised by its two commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi after reported the deep divide within the Election Commission over the SIR-related decisions taken over the last 10 months.

In a statement, Congress MP and communication in-charge Jairam Ramesh said: “The centrality of the ECINet software to the electoral roll preparation, its deletion of eligible voters and illegal override of EROs have not been denied. Nothing has been proposed to substantively address these issues.”

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Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, speaking to reporters in Keralam on Sunday, reiterated her demand for the immediate resignation of the CEC, alleging that he has political leanings and questioning how he could conduct fair elections.

Chief Ministers of states being ruled by the Congress also targeted the poll panel, CEC Gyanesh Kumar in particular, asserting that the doubts raised by Rahul Gandhi on the fairness of the poll panel stood vindicated.

Keralam Chief Minister V D Satheesan said that “everything stated earlier” by Rahul Gandhi “has now been proven true” and that the CEC “has degraded the Election Commission into a body operating in mutual collusion with the BJP”. “His [CEC Gyanesh Kumar] continued presence in office will only further tarnish Indian democracy,” said Satheesan.

“The revelations made by former Kerala Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson against CEC Gyanesh Kumar are extremely serious. No further evidence is required to prove that Gyanesh Kumar acted as an agent of the BJP…who subverted democracy on behalf of the BJP,” he added.

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He said that “history will record” Gyanesh Kumar “as the person who pronounced a death sentence on Indian democracy… he should not remain in office for even a single moment”.

Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said the concerns raised by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and LoP Rahul Gandhi over alleged “vote theft” turned out to be true, and said the party would discuss its next course of action at the Congress Working Committee meeting on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said: “Whatever Rahul Gandhi and Kharge Sahab had said has now turned out to be true. I have come to discuss what our roadmap should be on this issue. The entire country has become aware of it. So, it is becoming clear that the elections were conducted with a lot of irregularities,” Shivakumar said.

CPIM Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas wrote to the CEC, raising concerns over the ECI’s clarification on Saturday and alleged that it raises “more questions than it answers”.

“If Form 6 is a statutory form prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, how can an additional mandatory declaration be introduced through an online portal without amending those Rules?” said Brittas.

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He asked if the reported objections of two Election Commissioners to this change were true. “If so, how were the objections resolved, and was the Commission’s own prescribed decision-making procedure followed?” he asked.

“More importantly, what about citizens who could not even submit Form 6 online because they could not furnish the additional declaration?” said Brittas in a statement.