00:00And we're getting some breaking news amid reports of internal rift.
00:04Chief Election Commissioner and the two election commissioners to release joint statement shortly.
00:09Joint statement by the poll body amid the reports of internal rift over special intensive revision.
00:14There are reports that claim that the Chief Election Commissioner and the election commissioners,
00:19the two election commissioners, differ over the special intensive revision process.
00:23So the election commission had earlier rejected media reports of internal dissent.
00:28They stated that all official poll panel decisions have been completely unanimous.
00:33And reports say, in fact, reports claim that Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi
00:38had formally recorded objections at least 14 times over a 10-month period.
00:43And the objections were reportedly regarding decisions made under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
00:49Now, the reported disputes involved SIR exercise, changes to Form 6 and the centralization of the electoral roll data.
00:57So the deletions, the registrations, the appeals, this is what the objections were related to.
01:04My colleague Amit Bhadwaj is now joining us with more details on this.
01:08Amit, Amit, the reports of internal dissent within the election commission.
01:13Now we are learning that the Chief Election Commissioner and the two election commissioners
01:17will be releasing a joint statement.
01:20What will be, what can be expected?
01:22Will it be on the lines that there's no rift and all the decisions are taken unanimously?
01:29Well, this particular issue or the, you know, revelations have given ammunition to the opposition parties
01:36where the opposition parties were saying that, look, for months what we have been raising,
01:40the questions that we have been raising, we stand vindicated today because it's not the opposition parties,
01:45rather the election commissioners within the ECI who had raised their concerns and dissent notes were written to the CEC's
01:57action.
01:58Now, after this particular, you know, stance taken by the Congress Party, the Aam Admi Party or Mamata Banerjee's AITC,
02:06it was pretty much expected that the Election Commission of India could actually come out with a rebuttal.
02:11First, the ECI sources had spoken that all the decisions were made only, you know, with signature of all three
02:18commissioners.
02:20That is, if for our viewers' understanding, there are three commissioners in the Election Commission of India,
02:26Janesh Kumar being the CEC of that particular commission.
02:30Now, what is to be noted out here is that the EC sources had already said,
02:35that there were, you know, observations made by these commissioners, two commissioners in question,
02:42and they were taken care of, and all the decisions that were made had signatures of all three commissioners,
02:49including the CEC.
02:51So, this is the stance that these EC sources had told us,
02:56but now what we are given to understand, a joint statement is expected in some time from now,
03:02which means that all three commissioners, Mr. Joshi, Mr. Sandhu, as well as Mr. Janesh Kumar,
03:08will be issuing that statement.
03:10So, it will be a statement from all three commissioners,
03:13and hence, there will be an attempt to clear the air after this particular revelation was made today,
03:18and the way Aboriginal parties are targeting,
03:20more so about the authority to delete voters being centralised,
03:25questions around Form 6,
03:27and as to how the two commissioners, Mr. Sandhu and Mr. Joshi,
03:32were kept in dark as per, reportedly kept in dark,
03:35as per the communications that are being cited.
