Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari on Sunday criticised the Election Commission over the alleged large-scale deletion of voters' names from electoral rolls, as Opposition leaders prepared to begin the INDIA bloc's 'Chalo Dilli' march in the national capital.
Tharoor called for an "absolutely clean election register", arguing that the removal of such a large number of voters was unacceptable and could undermine the constitutional rights of citizens.
"The constitutional rights of the Indian people should not be taken away by the Election Commission. What they did was simply wrong. We have conducted elections fairly and freely for 80 years in this country without any of these problems, without people being cut en masse. You cannot cut 130 million voters," news agency ANI quoted Tharoor as saying.
He added that maintaining an accurate electoral roll should not come at the cost of excluding genuine voters.
"What we need is an absolutely clean election register. It is better to have one or two dead people there than cut out 130 million real people," the Congress MP said.
Fellow Congress leader Manish Tewari also accused the Election Commission of depriving a large number of people of their voting rights.
"See, the thing is, 13 crore people have been deprived of voting rights. We are here to protest against it," news agency PTI quoted Tewari as saying.
Opposition leaders head towards march venue
The remarks came as Opposition leaders left Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence on Rajaji Marg and headed towards the Minto Road-Connaught Place junction to begin the 'Chalo Dilli' march.
The INDIA bloc's demonstration is aimed at protesting alleged electoral irregularities and demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The march is scheduled to culminate at Ramlila Maidan, where Opposition parties have organised a mega rally.
The Opposition has alleged that the revision exercise has resulted in the exclusion of genuine voters on a large scale, raising concerns about the integrity of the electoral process and citizens' constitutional right to vote.