Congress seeks Gyanesh Kumar's resignation, alleges 'bulldozing' of Election Commission

New Delhi, Sep 23 (UNI) The Congress on Wednesday demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of "bulldozing" the Election Commission of India and functioning in an authoritarian manner following a media report that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections to several decisions taken in the name of the poll panel.

Congress Working Committee member and Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi said Kumar had "no right to continue in his position even for a second" and should step down immediately. "If he has any sense of shame, he must step down immediately," Singhvi said at a press conference in New Delhi. His remarks followed an investigation by The Indian Express which reported that Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders which they said had been issued without their knowledge or approval.

The reported objections related to voter registration and deletion, changes to Form 6 used by first-time voters, the centralisation of electoral-roll data and aspects of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. The Election Commission, however, rejected the suggestion that the reported objections pointed to an institutional breakdown, saying that written notes, observations and technical suggestions were part of the normal functioning of a multi-member constitutional body. It maintained that the SIR and other decisions had the approval of the full Commission and were taken unanimously. Singhvi said the reported differences within the Commission raised serious questions about its functioning and praised the two Election Commissioners for recording their objections.

"Dissent is not disruption; dissent is democracy's protection," he said, adding that a "dissenting note is not a subject of dustbin for inconvenient questions". Describing the situation as a "double-bulldozer government", Singhvi alleged that while one bulldozer was operating externally, another was functioning internally within the ECI, where he claimed the CEC was marginalising the other two Election Commissioners. "The CEC has proved to be an outstanding example of an internal bulldozer," he alleged, accusing Kumar of having "hijacked" the ECI and treating it as though he were the "sole sovereign lord of a fiefdom" rather than the head of a constitutional institution. Singhvi, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, also invoked a 1995 Supreme Court ruling to argue that the CEC was not the supreme authority within the Commission but "first among equals".

The Supreme Court has held that the Election Commission is a multi-member body and that treating the CEC's view as final could render the other commissioners "non-functional or ornamental". Singhvi alleged that Sandhu had written to the CEC 14 times and questioned why the objections had not received satisfactory responses. According to The Indian Express report, Sandhu and Joshi had raised objections on several aspects of electoral-roll management, including the centralisation of the electoral database and changes relating to Form 6. He also questioned the reported handling of appeals concerning voters in West Bengal and asked who had authorised the ECI to file such appeals.

Singhvi demanded that all dissenting notes and written objections within the Commission be made public in the interest of transparency and accountability. "This is important for accountability," he said. On Form 6, Singhvi alleged that changes had made registration more difficult for first-time voters by requiring them to provide details relating to their parents or grandparents in earlier electoral rolls. The Indian Express report said the two Election Commissioners had objected to changes in Form 6, with Joshi recording that the statutory form could not be altered without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

Singhvi also attacked the scale of deletions during the SIR exercise, alleging that millions of names had been removed from electoral rolls and warning that the number could rise further as the exercise progresses. The Indian Express has reported that the SIR, which began in Bihar in 2025 and has since expanded to other States and union Territories, has resulted in more than 13 crore names being struck from draft rolls across 30 States and union Territories. The ECI has defended the exercise, maintaining that its decisions were taken collectively. The Congress leader alleged that the scale of the deletions reflected what he described as an "obsession" on the part of the ruling party to win elections "by hook or by crook".

He further alleged that the BJP wanted to eliminate the Opposition from areas where it enjoyed electoral dominance. The Congress's attack is part of a wider Opposition response to the reported differences within the Election Commission. Several Opposition parties have demanded Kumar's removal and a probe into the functioning of the poll panel following the report about objections recorded by Sandhu and Joshi. The ECI, for its part, has said that differing views, observations and technical suggestions are a normal part of deliberations and that highlighting selected internal notes without considering the Commission's larger body of decisions presents only "one part of the picture".

It has reiterated that the three-member Commission remains committed to discharging its constitutional responsibilities.

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