Gyanesh Kumar
Kumar refuses to resign over the removal of 130 million voter names, which his commission calls a cleanup of duplicates and dead entries, as protests, court fights and a Kerala corruption probe close in.
Gyanesh Kumar, India's Chief Election Commissioner, is refusing to resign over the removal of roughly 130 million names from the country's electoral rolls; his commission calls it a cleanup of duplicates and dead entries, while critics allege it illegally deleted voters to benefit the ruling BJP.
The Special Intensive Revision has put him at the center of a nationwide confrontation. Protests demanding his resignation have spread from Delhi and Mumbai to Bikaner, Ranchi, Karnataka and Tripura, with more than 2,000 people detained in New Delhi and parts of the capital cut off from internet and transport. Opposition leaders, among them Rahul Gandhi, Pinarayi Vijayan, Revanth Reddy and Jairam Ramesh, want him out; Home Minister Amit Shah and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stand by the purge.
Kumar's own defense is blunt: the revision took the commission's 'guts,' he told an electoral literacy conference in Lucknow, and India's election system is transparent and lawful. There he also pressed Uttar Pradesh officials to lift turnout among young voters and married women, amid speculation the state's assembly election could be moved earlier.
The courts are his main battleground. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear legal arguments on the revision, generally upholding its validity while requiring the commission to follow proper procedures, and lower courts are fielding detention and protest-permission pleas from the crackdown.
Two personal fronts compound the rolls row. Kerala's home minister has ordered a vigilance inquiry into his 2006 tenure as state PWD secretary over a World Bank-funded road project, citing suicide notes he says name Kumar clearly. And he faces conflict-of-interest questions for not visibly recusing himself when the commission dismissed reports of police assaulting Muslim voters in Sambhal on the account of his son-in-law, a returning officer.
On their plate
The commission's Special Intensive Revision removed roughly 130 million names it calls duplicates and ineligible entries; critics allege opaque algorithms, burdensome documentation and third-party forms used in Karnataka to dispute mostly Muslim voters, with Uttarakhand's rolls falling from 8.4 million to 7.1 million and Telangana's draft roll from 33.8 million to 26.4 million ahead of final rolls due November 9. The commission's remedies are home visits to review flagged voters' documents and reapplication via Form 6, while Congress MP Shashi Tharoor demands the deletions reversed and the revision placed under Supreme Court supervision. Kumar himself has defended the exercise as requiring the commission's 'guts,' pressing Uttar Pradesh officials to lift turnout among young voters and married women amid speculation the state's assembly election could be moved earlier.
Protests demanding Kumar's resignation and the revision's scrapping run from Delhi and Mumbai to Bikaner and Ranchi, while Congress observed a 'black day' in Karnataka and Tripura and INDIA bloc MPs vow to take their demands directly to the commission. New Delhi's response has been a mass crackdown: more than 2,000 people detained, including opposition lawmakers, internet and transport suspended in parts of the capital, and over 200 more held at a Jantar Mantar sit-in where CPI(M) MP John Brittas alleges police assault. Former Solicitor General Harish Salve counters that the movement is an opposition attempt to destabilize constitutional institutions and use the Supreme Court as a political tool, while Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, detained ahead of a Delhi rally demanding Kumar's removal, vows to return to the streets.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear legal arguments on the poll body's conduct, generally upholding the revision's validity while mandating the commission follow proper procedures, and it is weighing petitions alleging police assault on women journalists and illegal detention of lawyers during the protests. A challenge tied to Rahul Gandhi and the INDIA bloc's march against the commission is before it as well, while the Bombay and Delhi High Courts handle detention and protest-permission pleas. BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi has called for Supreme Court oversight of elections if the Constitution is violated, and Brittas has petitioned the President, the Chief Justice and the Rajya Sabha Chairman over the Jantar Mantar crackdown.
Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has ordered a Vigilance and Anti-Corruption preliminary inquiry into Kumar's 2006 tenure as the state's PWD secretary over a World Bank-funded MC Road project, following Congress leader Malayinkeezhu Venugopal's complaint alleging illegal gratification. Chennithala says suicide notes recovered from Malaysian engineer Lee See Been 'mentioned about PWD Secretary Gyanesh Kumar very clearly,' and that Kumar's current office offers no legal shield against investigating pre-appointment events. Congress MP Pramod Tiwari says a man with 'even a shred of morality' would resign.
Kumar did not visibly recuse himself when the commission dismissed as false the reports of police assaulting and ejecting Muslim voters in Sambhal during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, a dismissal resting on the account of returning officer Manish Bansal, his son-in-law. A Supreme Court bench led by Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, meanwhile, granted relief to Kumar's daughter, Noida District Magistrate Medha Roopam, while the judge's son serves as standing counsel for the commission.
Key relationships
The opposition leader is leading the campaign against Kumar, seeking a stay on the Special Intensive Revision and marching with the INDIA bloc against the commission.
The home minister publicly defended the purge as removing foreigners and people using false documents.
The senior Congress figure demands Kumar's resignation, accusing him of violating the Constitution 'in letter and spirit' and lying to the Supreme Court.
The Assam chief minister is a prominent political defender of the revision, calling it necessary against cross-border demographic change.
The Kerala home minister ordered a vigilance inquiry into Kumar's 2006 tenure as state PWD secretary over a World Bank-funded road project, insisting Kumar's current office offers no legal shield for pre-appointment events.
The CPI(M) veteran and former Kerala chief minister, detained while marching to protest Kumar, declared that he must resign.
The Telangana chief minister demands Kumar's ouster unless the revision is reversed and every citizen's vote restored.
The Congress MP demands Kumar resign over the Kerala corruption allegations.
