Overview
- Opposition leaders submitted a new removal notice on Friday in the Rajya Sabha, with 73 MPs signing the motion that Congress’s Jairam Ramesh and TMC’s Sagarika Ghose lodged with the secretary general.
- The notice lists nine charges, led by claims of partisan enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct and the Election Commission’s lack of action on complaints about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s April 18 televised address.
- The filing also cites the Commission’s April 8 ‘straight talk’ post after a Trinamool Congress meeting and alleges ‘mass disenfranchisement’ in West Bengal through special roll revisions that opposition parties say deleted about 91 lakh voters and judicially excluded about 34 lakh.
- The Opposition has asked the Rajya Sabha chairman to admit the notice, set up a three-member inquiry committee, and secure Gyanesh Kumar’s recusal from election duties during any probe.
- Neither an admission order nor an Election Commission response has been announced, and Union minister Kiren Rijiju criticized the move, following April 6 rejections of earlier notices by the presiding officers that underscored the high legal bar.