Bhubaneswar, Oct 6: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Tuesday joined the Opposition parties’ protest march in New Delhi against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the alleged deletion of voters’ names across the country.

Acting on the direction of BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, the party’s Members of Parliament participated in the march to the Election Commission of India (ECI) office.

BJD Parliamentary Party Leader in the Rajya Sabha Manas Mangaraj said Patnaik had already demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over what the party described as controversial decisions related to the SIR exercise.

The BJD has expressed concern over the alleged exclusion of more than 20 lakh voters in Odisha and over 13 crore voters across the country during the electoral roll revision.

The party also pointed to an alleged incident in Dhamnagar, where 227 votes belonging to members of a minority community were reportedly deleted from a particular area without the knowledge of the concerned Booth Level Officers (BLOs).

The BJD said the incident had raised serious questions about the transparency and integrity of the SIR process.

According to Mangaraj, thousands of voters have reportedly been excluded from electoral rolls in the Dhamnagar Assembly constituency.

He also said the voluntary retirement application submitted by the State Chief Electoral Officer had further added to concerns surrounding the issue.

The BJD also referred to observations by the Supreme Court concerning the modification of Form 6.

Mangaraj said the court had clarified that it had not issued any direction for such a modification, questioning the Election Commission’s earlier position on the matter.

Also Read: Opposition MPs march to Election Commission seeking resignation of PM Modi, Amit Shah and CEC

BJD MP Sulata Deo said that its participation in the protest should not be construed as an alignment with either the INDIA bloc or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

 “We are a responsible political party. The CEC has murdered the democracy. In Odisha, over 27 lakh voters have been deleted. Gyanesh Kumar is doing it at the behest of the BJP,” Deo said.

Deo added that Naveen Patnaik had already demanded the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar.