IndiaPosted at: Sep 25 2026 4:16PM


Opposition takes fight against CEC Gyanesh Kumar to streets as internal ECI dissent sparks nationwide protests

New Delhi, Sep 25 (UNI) The political battle over the Election Commission of India’s functioning intensified on Friday as the Congress-led INDIA bloc and other opposition groups took their campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to the streets, holding protests across the country and demanding his removal amid growing scrutiny over reported differences within the three-member poll panel.
Demonstrations were reported in several cities, with police using water cannons in Chandigarh and Patna, while senior opposition leaders and workers were detained in Assam and Punjab. The protests came a day after Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi stepped up his attack on Kumar and opposition parties indicated that they would move a fresh notice in Parliament seeking his removal.
The immediate trigger for the nationwide mobilisation was an investigation by The Indian Express which reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded at least 14 formal objections over a 10-month period to decisions and orders concerning electoral rolls and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). According to the report, the objections covered issues including changes to Form 6 for new voters, deletion and restoration of names from electoral rolls, the handling of appeals in West Bengal and concerns over what the two commissioners described as the “gradual centralisation” of the electoral-roll database.
The report said the two Election Commissioners had, on several occasions, raised concerns that important steps were being taken without their knowledge or approval. In one instance, Sandhu described a change to Form 6 as “unauthorised and illegal” and called for its immediate removal, while Joshi had earlier recorded that the statutory Form 6 could not be altered without amendments to the relevant electoral rules. The investigation also reported objections over access to the electoral-roll database and the role of the Commission’s IT systems in relation to statutory authorities at the state and constituency levels.
The reported dissent has assumed particular significance because the Election Commission is a multi-member constitutional body under Article 324 of the Constitution. The 2023 law governing the appointment and service conditions of the CEC and Election Commissioners provides that the business of the Commission should, as far as possible, be transacted unanimously, while differences of opinion are to be decided by majority. The controversy therefore centres not merely on the existence of differing views but on the opposition's contention that the objections reveal serious questions about how decisions affecting the electoral process were taken and implemented.
The Election Commission, however, has rejected the suggestion that the reported internal notes demonstrate a breakdown in its functioning. The poll panel has said that written observations, queries and differing views are a normal part of institutional deliberations and constitute internal checks and balances. It has maintained that its final decisions and orders, including those relating to the SIR, were taken unanimously, arguing that highlighting selected internal communications presents only “one part of the picture”.
The political confrontation nevertheless spilled onto the streets on Friday. In Guwahati, Assam Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi and several party workers were detained during a demonstration demanding action against the CEC. In Chandigarh, Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring led protesters demanding Kumar’s removal and action over the SIR, while police used water cannons as demonstrators sought to move towards the poll authorities. Similar protests were reported in other parts of the country, including Jammu and Kashmir, Lucknow and Dehradun.
In Manipur, the Youth Congress staged a demonstration demanding an independent probe into the allegations and action against Kumar. The protests were part of a wider mobilisation directed by the Congress leadership, which asked its state and district units to organise demonstrations outside State Election Commission offices and district administrative headquarters.
The opposition's parliamentary strategy is running parallel to the street campaign. Opposition parties are preparing a fresh notice in both Houses of Parliament seeking the removal of Kumar, with the draft expected to be legally vetted before being submitted. Reports indicate that this would be the third such attempt by opposition parties to move a removal motion against the CEC.
The demand has been given additional political momentum by Rahul Gandhi, who has repeatedly alleged irregularities in the electoral process and has demanded Kumar's resignation. Gandhi has argued that the reported objections by two of the three Election Commissioners raise questions that cannot be dismissed as merely political allegations. On Thursday, he called on Kumar to “turn approver” while attacking what he described as the erosion of the institutional safeguards surrounding elections.
The opposition has also sought greater scrutiny of the SIR exercise, which has emerged as the central flashpoint in the dispute. The Indian Express reported that the exercise had struck more than 13 crore names from draft electoral rolls across 30 states and union Territories, although names removed from draft rolls can be subject to verification and claims and objections under the prescribed process. The report said the internal objections raised by Sandhu and Joshi concerned precisely those aspects of the electoral system involving addition, deletion and restoration of voters and control over the digital systems underpinning electoral rolls.
The BJP has rejected the opposition's allegations and defended both the Election Commission and the SIR process. BJP national spokesperson and MP Sambit Patra said differences during deliberations were evidence of democratic functioning rather than institutional failure, stressing that the Commission's final decisions were unanimous. “We are not trying to save anybody. We are trying to save democracy,” Patra said, accusing the opposition of running a campaign to discredit constitutional institutions.
BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi also dismissed Rahul Gandhi's allegations, questioning the basis of the claims and arguing that the opposition was attempting to undermine the Election Commission after electoral setbacks.
The controversy has now moved beyond the familiar political dispute over SIR and voter-roll revisions and into a more fundamental debate over institutional decision-making inside the Election Commission. At its core is a question that neither side can easily sidestep: whether the reported objections by two Election Commissioners represent routine internal scrutiny that ultimately culminated in unanimous decisions, as the ECI maintains, or whether they point to deeper concerns about transparency, authority and control over the electoral machinery, as the opposition argues.
With protests spreading and a fresh removal motion being prepared, the dispute is set to move simultaneously onto the streets, into Parliament and potentially into the courts. The Election Commission's handling of the reported objections, the legal basis of changes to electoral procedures and the safeguards governing access to voter databases are likely to remain at the centre of the confrontation as the opposition presses for Kumar's removal and the poll panel insists that its institutional decisions remain lawful and unanimous.
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