Sanjay Raut says INDIA bloc will rectify 14 defects flagged in Supreme Court plea challenging ECI

Shiv Sena UBT leader Sanjay Raut on Tuesday said the INDIA bloc would rectify errors flagged by the Supreme Court Registry in its petition challenging the Election Commission of Indiarsquos ECI functioning asserting that the Opposition remained determined to hold the poll panel accountableSpeaking to ANI Raut acknowledged technical discrepancies in the petition including a court fee shortfall of Rs 220 and issues relating to supporting documents The Supreme Court Registry has flagged 14 defects in the plea filed by Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and other INDIA bloc leadersldquoThe petition that has been filed mentions that the fee is short by Rs 220 there are several errors and there are facts about 14 documents mentioned in it Well it is possible We have individual petitions in the names of Rahul Ji Mallikarjun Kharge Ji and all other India Bloc leaders There might be some errors in it which we will now rectify and repairrdquo Raut saidRaut confirms participation in legal challengeRaut confirmed that he was among the petitioners saying that leaders and parties involved in Mondayrsquos protest had joined the legal challengeldquoDefinitely I am a petitioner All the parties that were involved in yesterdays protest are all petitionersrdquo he saidThe petition challenges aspects of the Election Commissionrsquos ongoing Special Intensive Revision SIR of electoral rolls and raises concerns over alleged irregularities in the exercise of the poll panelrsquos powersINDIA bloc seeks CECrsquos resignationExplaining the Oppositionrsquos demands Raut called for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumarrsquos resignation and alleged that political pressure was influencing the Election Commissionrsquos functioningldquoWhat do we want We want the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar to resign We want to stop the scams happening in the Election Commission We want to stop the political pressure that is being exerted on the Election Commission We want to stop the ECI They have deleted the names of 13 crore people and we want them to restore themrdquo he saidThe allegations concerning electoralroll deletions and the Commissionrsquos functioning remain contestedRaut says Opposition will decide next stepsRaut said Rahul Gandhi had invited Opposition leaders for tea on Tuesday evening after which they would discuss their next course of actionldquoRahul Gandhi invited everyone for tea this evening After that we will decide the future direction I wont call it a strategy but what the future direction is that will be decided We are all staying in Delhi and until the future direction is finalized we will stay hererdquo he saidShiv Sena UBT leader criticises restrictions on protestsEarlier Raut accused the Centre of restricting democratic expression by imposing curbs on protest sites such as Jantar Mantar in Delhi He targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah alleging that the restrictions were intended to suppress dissentldquoModi and Shah have become so scared that their bodies tremble and they lose sleep upon hearing the voice of the people To prevent the protest from happening in Delhi they have put a ban on Jantar Mantar Jantar Mantar is closed This is fear The soul of democracy was at Jantar Mantar The government has done the work of choking that democracy and silencing its voice by stopping the movement at Jantar Mantarrdquo Raut saidHe also praised Gandhi for leading Mondayrsquos demonstrations and argued that restrictions on protest locations would not prevent public oppositionldquoBy putting a ban on the locations of the movement you cannot stop the movements against yourdquo Raut addedThe Supreme Court Registryrsquos objections relate to procedural and documentary deficiencies in the petition and do not constitute a ruling on the merits of the INDIA blocrsquos allegationsWith inputs from ANI