NEW DELHI: Kerala home minister Ramesh Chennithala has ordered a Vigilance investigation into allegations of irregularities involving Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar during his tenure as the state’s Public Works Department Secretary in 2006, news agency ANI reported.The case concerns the death by suicide of Malaysian civil engineer Lee See Been, who was associated with the PATI-BEL consortium involved in the upgradation of MC Road under the Kerala State Transport Project. Been’s suicide note reportedly mentioned Gyanesh Kumar.The investigation has been ordered following allegations that external pressure was exerted and that the original inquiry into the case was derailed.Chennithala has directly instructed the Vigilance Director to conduct a thorough inquiry into the allegations of external influence in the case involving Gyanesh Kumar and take appropriate action based on the findings, the Home Minister’s Office said.“Yesterday, Malayinkeezhu Venugopal, a Congress activist, gave me a petition regarding the malpractices and corrupt activities of Gyanesh Kumar when he was PWD secretary in Keralam… The representation reveals some of the serious issues. Also, in between, my Malaysian project engineer, Lee, committed suicide. In the suicide note, it has been mentioned about PWD Secretary Gyanesh Kumar very clearly. So the government cannot sit idle. I cannot become a mute spectator… I had forwarded it to the vigilance director to go into the details of the petition and take legal action to deliver justice,” Chennithala said.Official sources said the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) will conduct a probe into the allegations, as cited by news agency PTI.The development comes as opposition parties, student organisations and youth groups held protests in Delhi and Mumbai on Friday, demanding Kumar’s resignation over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and claims of mass voter deletions.Around 700 people were detained in Delhi, while thousands gathered at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park despite police denying permission for the demonstrations.In Delhi, those detained included AAP leaders Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Sanjeev Jha, AISA president Neha Bora, CPI(M) leaders M A Baby and Brinda Karat, CPI national secretary P Sandosh Kumar, RJD leader Manoj Jha, social activist Yogendra Yadav, DYFI president A A Rahim and former JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh.
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The agitation intensified after media reports claimed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on at least 14 occasions over 10 months regarding decisions and procedures linked to the SIR exercise and other electoral matters.The reported objections covered issues including voter deletions, Form 6 and access to electoral-roll databases. The Election Commission, however, rejected suggestions that the objections reflected institutional dissent, saying operational queries, inputs and suggestions raised during the draft stage were part of its routine administrative and decision-making process.The ECI said the three-member commission had taken all decisions, including those related to the SIR, unanimously.
