The Congress on Thursday protested outside the Election Commission’s office in New Delhi after its Uttarakhand leaders were allegedly denied a meeting to submit a memorandum over alleged irregularities in the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.The party has claimed that applications were being submitted seeking deletion of thousands of voters even as persons shown as applicants were themselves unaware that such requests had been made in their names. “This clearly shows that it is a BJP conspiracy to cut Congress voters,” the party leaders alleged.Uttarakhand Congress in-charge Kumari Selja accused the poll panel of failing to act against these alleged attempts to arbitrarily remove eligible voters and claimed the EC had become “caged”.Selja said, “We wanted to submit a memorandum to the EC regarding the massive irregularities happening in Uttarakhand in the name of the SIR.”“When we came here today, we learned that the EC itself is caged. It is heartbreaking that we were forced to sit in front of such a prestigious institution and raise slogans,” she said, adding that both the poll body and the Modi government would have to answer to the people.The Congress claimed that before approaching the Election Commission in Delhi, its leaders had submitted a memorandum to the election authorities in Uttarakhand and sought a meeting over the issue.The party alleged that while an individual could submit only up to five applications, there were instances in Uttarakhand where hundreds or thousands of applications seeking deletion of voters had allegedly been filed in the name of a single person.Congress leaders Gurdeep Singh Sappal, Qazi Nizamuddin, Pritam Singh, Harak Singh Rawat and Karan Mahara, jointly, criticised the Election Commission for allegedly not allowing the delegation to enter its office and termed the treatment of party leaders “condemnable”.Uttarakhand Congress president Ganesh Godiyal and Congress Legislature Party leader Yashpal Arya also accused the BJP of attempting to manipulate the electoral rolls, linking the Uttarakhand allegations with the Congress’s broader charge of “vote chori”.“In a democracy, impartiality and transparency are expected from the Election Commission,” they said, alleging that the BJP wanted to use the same method in Uttarakhand that it had allegedly used to “steal votes” in Maharashtra and Bihar.The Congress said it would continue to challenge alleged wrongful deletions and ensure that eligible voters were not deprived of their franchise during the revision exercise.