File photo: Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh
NEW DELHI: Dubbing the Election Commission’s affidavit in Supreme Court as “deceptive, deceitful and duplicitous”, Congress Tuesday said CEC Gyanesh Kumar has been taking unilateral decisions and the EC’s claims on Form 6 are contradictory.Taking to X, Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” He said that as per the EC’s claims, major SIR orders were formally approved by all three ECs.“But two election commissioners objected on record to grave violations and illegal actions taking place on orders of CEC — their objections were disregarded. The commissioners were not even informed and learnt of these decisions from the news.
This is not unanimity but unilateral decision-making,” he said.Ramesh said EC’s stand on “illegal amendment to Form 6” is deceptive as it first claimed SC had approved the new declaration attached to Form 6 but changed its tune after SC contradicted its claim. “It now claims the new declaration form is separate, and Form 6 was not amended. But this is a deception — Form 6 could not be submitted online without filling this mandatory declaration,” he said.He said the EC has been silent on illegal centralisation of rolls through ECINET by overriding electoral registration officers who are the statutory authority — which was put on record by the commissioners.