CEC Gyanesh Kumar: Why India’s Election Commission Is in the Eye of a Storm — Again
India’s Election Commission has been plunged into a fresh controversy after a report in The Indian Express said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally recorded objections at least 14 times over a 10-month period to decisions concerning electoral rolls, voter registration, deletions and the Commission’s technology systems. The allegations have placed Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at the centre of an increasingly intense political and institutional dispute.
The immediate flashpoint is the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, of electoral rolls. The exercise began in Bihar in June 2025 and was subsequently extended to other parts of the country. According to the Indian Express report, more than 13 crore names had been struck off draft electoral rolls across 30 States and Union Territories by the time of its investigation, although deletion from a draft roll does not necessarily mean permanent removal from the final electoral register.
The reported internal objections concern several aspects of this process. They include the addition, deletion and restoration of voters, changes to Form 6—the application used by people seeking registration as voters—and the management and security of electoral-roll data. The report also described concerns about centralisation of access to electoral-roll databases and changes to the functioning of the Commission’s technology systems.
One particularly contentious issue involves changes to Form 6 on the ECI’s ECINet platform. The Indian Express reported that a new question asked applicants whether their own name, or that of a parent or grandparent, appeared in an earlier electoral roll. The report said Sandhu had objected to the change, describing it as unauthorised and illegal.
The Election Commission has disputed the interpretation that these objections demonstrate a breakdown in decision-making. Its position is that internal notes, questions and differing views are normal within a multi-member constitutional institution. The Commission has maintained that its final decisions, including those relating to SIR, were approved unanimously by all three commissioners.
That distinction is central to the controversy. A recorded objection during an internal deliberation does not, by itself, establish that the final decision was taken without the Commission’s approval. At the same time, the existence of repeated formal objections by two commissioners has raised questions about how disagreements were handled and how much information was shared among members of the three-person constitutional body.
The dispute has become politically explosive because electoral-roll revisions determine who appears on the voter list. Opposition parties have argued that the reported objections require a wider investigation into the functioning of the Commission and have demanded action against Kumar. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has sharply attacked the CEC and linked the controversy to his broader allegations concerning electoral rolls and what he calls “vote theft.” These are political allegations, not findings established by a court.
The BJP and the Election Commission have rejected the interpretation that the reported internal disagreements establish wrongdoing. The Commission has emphasised that its institutional process includes scrutiny, deliberation and checks before decisions are formally adopted. The BJP has similarly argued that disagreement during deliberations does not mean the final institutional decision lacked approval.
The controversy is also unfolding against a backdrop of judicial scrutiny of SIR. In May 2026, the Supreme Court upheld the legal validity of the Bihar SIR, holding that the Election Commission had statutory and constitutional authority to conduct the exercise and that the procedure, including safeguards for affected voters, was legally sustainable. The Court also held that the Commission could undertake a limited inquiry relevant to electoral eligibility, while distinguishing that function from a formal determination of citizenship under the Citizenship Act.
Yet subsequent developments have kept the voter-roll issue alive. In West Bengal, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court that 27.16 lakh voters had been removed during SIR, while more than 22 lakh of them had filed appeals seeking reinstatement. The Commission attributed deletions to categories including absentee, shifted, dead and duplicate entries and defended the process before the Court.
The Supreme Court has also recently questioned aspects of the SIR process in Delhi. On September 22, 2026, the Court raised concerns that some notices sent to voters appeared to have been issued “almost mechanically” and suggested that voters should be permitted to respond through channels such as WhatsApp and email.
The controversy has now moved beyond political statements and into the legal arena. A petition filed in the Supreme Court on September 25 seeks prosecution of Gyanesh Kumar and a Special Investigation Team inquiry into alleged decisions connected with SIR and voter deletions. The petitioner also seeks a declaration that certain decisions and software changes allegedly made without the concurrence of the other commissioners are invalid. The allegations in the petition remain matters for judicial consideration; the filing itself does not establish wrongdoing.
There is also a constitutional question over Kumar’s position. He became India’s 26th Chief Election Commissioner on February 19, 2025, after serving as an Election Commissioner. He is a 1988-batch Kerala-cadre IAS officer and previously held senior positions in the Union government, including Secretary in the Ministry of Cooperation.
Kumar’s appointment was the first CEC appointment made under the 2023 law establishing the current statutory selection mechanism. The selection committee consists of the Prime Minister, a Union Cabinet minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The change itself had already generated constitutional debate, particularly because the earlier Supreme Court-directed arrangement had included the Chief Justice of India.
The question of removal is therefore separate from the political demand for resignation. Under Article 324(5), the Chief Election Commissioner has special protection: removal must follow the constitutional procedure applicable to the removal of a Supreme Court judge. A parliamentary motion or political demand alone does not remove a CEC.
For the Election Commission, the stakes extend beyond the current dispute over Gyanesh Kumar. The institution administers elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and the offices of President and Vice-President, making public confidence in its neutrality and procedures an important component of the electoral system.
The present storm therefore has several distinct layers: reported disagreements among election commissioners, questions over electoral-roll revisions and voter data, continuing judicial scrutiny of SIR, demands from Opposition parties for Kumar’s removal, and the Commission’s insistence that its final decisions remain institutionally valid and unanimous. The central unresolved issue is not simply whether disagreements occurred, but what those disagreements mean for the Commission’s decision-making process and the transparency of an electoral system affecting hundreds of millions of voters.
As the controversy moves through Parliament, the courts and the public arena, the factual record will increasingly depend on the underlying documents, formal decisions of the Commission and judicial findings rather than political allegations on either side.
