The Chief Election Commissioner Subverts Democracy

 

The Chief Election Commissioner Subverts Democracy

The Indian Express, September 23,2026, ran the front-page Investigation Report “14 times in 10 months, two Elections Commissioners objected on record to steps taken by Commission – from keeping them in the dark to adding new voters and deleting names”,a piece of journalism of courage that the newspaper professes to uphold. Its Reporter Ritika Chopra, Editor (Mumbai), has saved the ‘Indian democracy’, as someone remarked.  

 

The full two-page report with four titles reveals how the entire electoral process was hijacked by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and reduced the mighty constitutionally independent Election Commission (EC) to a one-man dictatorship, imposing his diktats on the unassuming nation with far reaching consequences, resulting in an unprecedented rupture inside the EC.

 

The EC’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which began in Bihar in June 2025, an otherwise routine clean-up of the rolls, has struck more than 13 crore names off the voter rolls in 30 States and Union Territories. The investigation reveals that questions were raised on these very issues, within the three-member EC time and again by two of the three Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. They objected on record, at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions taken and orders issued without their knowledge. 

 

The Form-6 that a citizen imust fill in to become a voter was changed  to ask whether their parents and grandparents names were listed in the electoral rolls of the last SIR. This information was never sought earlier. Sandhu warned in the file that the Goverment could not chage Fomr-6 in this way without amending the rules. Each constituency’s voters’ list is prepared and controlled by its Electoral Registration Officer (ERO).  This list sits on a software, ERONet, and its successor ECINet. This process was centralised by the Commission’s Director General (IT) Seema Khanna – on Officer on deputation from the Ministry of IT - denying access to the digital data to the EROs and even to the ERO in the Commission, thus taking away their statutory power. This centralisation had resulted in massive disenfranchising of millions and millions of voters across the states.

 

It was a blow to the integrity of the elections themselves. The EROs were not able to do what the software allows: add a name, delete one, reverse a decision or process an appeal. The DG(IT)Division in New Delhi controls what the softwear allows. In August last, Sandhu reiterated that Seema Khanna  has no legal authority to restrict freedom to operate granted  by law to the statutory authorities (EROs). In fact, by November 2025, months before the ECINet was launched, the Commission warned that the IT system (ERONet then) must not restrict the statutory powers of EROs.

 

Never before have two Election Commissioners put on record objections that touch the heart of the electoral process itself, new voters, deleting names, the IT system that secures the entire voters’ list.  As the Report says, “a voter can be eligible, prove it, be found eligible by the officer the law appoints, and still not be on the roll when the day comes, because the roll is a centrally controlled system that cut the ERO out”. This power to delete and add voters names was unilaterally and arbitrarily exercised, in violation of the law, under the direct supervision of the CEC, in violation of the law, by a coterie wtth no authority to do so. This is the vote chori, meant to benefit the ruling party.  The Form-6 meant for a new voter was arbitrarily changed without the Government amending the rules as the law requires, overriding what ground-level officials do.

 

The entire 0ppposition was outraged at these revelations. The Opposition parties demanded Gyanesh Kumar' immediate removal.  Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said: “Vote Chori is a crime – the BJP, RSS and EC who organised it have committed an act of treason. Justice will be served.”  In a press note on September 23, a Deputy Director said that “all official orders, decisions, and administrative directions issued by the commission carry full legal sections”. To this, former CEC, SY Quraishi responded: “multi-member commission should be unanimous and should have majority views. The list of all decision should now be made public as to how many were unanimous and how many were by majority.” He also said that the SIR of electoral rolls is illegal. And another former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa reacted: “if two commissioners are saying that they were not involved, then the only way to refute this is to show a record that they were present in the commission meeting in which these decisions were taken.”

 

On September 24, Rahul Gandhi held a special press conference.  He said: “We are sitting in a place where we have never been. Our elections are fundamentally broken. The sacred belief in the voter is dying. And this is the first time in independent India that we are here.” He reiterated elections in India are being rigged, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minster Amit Shah and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar are ‘deshdrohis’ (traitors) who destroyed the votes: “I am not saying this lightly. For three years, I have been saying this. I have used facts. The fact is that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister have attacked the democratic architecture of this country. Thy are at the top of the conspiracy. This is an act against the Indian State and its people. They will be investigated.”

 

We have now learned that the force of anti-incumbency that operates in all democracies and against all political leaders doesn’t apply to Modi and Shah because of the vote chori, as now revealed by the two ECs. He played the video statements of Shah and Modi with the former claiming the BJP will win elections right from the Panchayat to Parliament for the next 50 years: “No political leader can say or make such statements.  In India, there is a force called anti-incumbency…It doesn’t spare anybody. Indira Gandhiji won the Bangladesh war. She was at the height of her popularity - the most popular leader. And within two-three years massive anti-incumbency…If the vote has been destroyed, then our constitution has been destroyed. If our constitution is destroyed, our laws are illegal, and our institutions are attacked. If MPs are elected by a stolen vote, then any law they have made is illegal.” He demanded resignation of Gyanesh Kumar and advised him to turn ‘Approver’.

 

In yet another attempt at damage control, the EC has issued a press note, with the “approval of the full commission” on September 26, addressing the issues raised by its two commissioners.  Jairam Ramesh calls it a ‘wishy-washy statement’. The CEO stands exposed and is now petrified as the entire country seeks to hold him accountable.  The press note leaves several questions unanswered; it doesn’t address the ‘mother of all objections’ alternations in Form 6. 

 

Reacting to the note, Ritika Chpra, whose Report created a stir across the country, has carried yet another report “In 48 hours, a sharp turn: Steps map two ECs’ concerns but key silences remain” in The Indian Express, September 27. She reports: “it (the Commission) announced nine decisions that addressed, point by point, several of the concerns recorded by the two Commissioners. Agenda will now be circulated before every Commission meeting and minutes issued afterwards. Officers’ foreign trips will need Commission approval. New IT modules and portal will go through a committee of officers before being placed before the Commission.   The ECINet will be reviewed by a committee headed by a senior Deputy Election Commissioner and will include an independent expert from an IIT or IITT. And directives issued by Commissioners to officers will be meticulously complied with”.

 

These decisions map, almost item for item, onto the concerns the two Commissioners had put on file: that agendas were not circulated and minutes not issued, that officers went abroad without the Commission’s approval, that new IT modules were bult without its knowledge, that the electoral roll database needed an audit by an independent expert, that field officers lacked proper and complete access to ERONet, and that an administrative order had altered the allocation of work around the IT division without them.

 

The sharp turn signals how deep the disquiet inside the Commission had become. It doesn’t say who in the Commission had authorised 16.10 lakh appeals filed against voters whose inclusion had been ordered by judicial officers in West Bengal.  And it doesn’t say whether the Commission stayed DG(IT) Seema Khanna, whose functioning was a point of contention, and Senor Deputy Election Commissioner Mamneesh Garg, against whom both Commissioners sought action.

 

On 27 September, over 2,000 citizens across the country have submitted an open letter to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to initiate suo motu proceedings against the operational and administrative conduct of the Commission regarding the SIR exercise and seek immediate stay.  They demand independent court monitored investigation into allegations of arbitrary, unauthorised changes made to voter registration in Form 6. The letter seeks penal action against the CEC and the officials for overriding statutory procedures and disregarding the constitutional mandate of the multi-member Commission. Earlier on 30 June, some 24 opposition parties wrote a letter to the CJI demanding action against the CEC. Both letters are unprecedented, that express loss of faith and trust in the Election Commission headed by Gyanesh Kumar.

 

It may be recalled that the impeachment notice against Gyanesh Kumar submitted in booth the Houses of Parliament by 193 members of the Opposition INDIA bloc on 23 March 2026 was rejected by the Seaker of Lok Saha and the Chairman of Rajya Sabha. The second impeachment notice submitted in Rajya Sabha by73 member on 6 April is pending.

  

Yogendra Yadav in his article “With its press note, the Election Commission makes the case against itself”, in The Indian Express, September 29,2026, raised some important legal points: “The ECI’s press note of September 26 is a formal admission of guilt, a sound legal basis to impeach the CEC. The press note admits wilful violations of law committed by the Election Commission.  First, it misrepresents the apex court order to say, ‘The declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR has been upheld by the Supreme Court’. Second, the decision to revert to the original Form 6 for the non-SIR period clearly in response to the objection of the two ECs that this change in the statutory form was ‘unauthored ad illegal’, is an admission that the modified form being used by the ECI so far was gros violation of law. Third, the claim that the 97 wrongfully deleted voters in Goa have been helped to become voters by filling in Form 6 is another proof of wilful violation of law...the note proposes to set up a committee of experts to review the ECINet to double check that it complies with the provisions of the Acts and Rules…the online portal  and software already used to delete more than 13 crore names from the electoral rolls is not in accordance with law.”   

 

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) met on 29 September. It alleged ‘match-fixing’ among the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Chief Election Commissioner and demanded resignation of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and Gyanesh Kumar; an immediate suspension of the SIR of electoral rolls and the restoration of 13.3 crore names deleted. The CWC resolution reads that “this brazen vote chori has been organised by the CEC on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. Nothing short of their resignation will ensure the safety of our Constitution and hard-earned democracy. For the Indian National Congress, the struggle to restore universal adult franchise in India is no less than the Freedom Struggle itself”.

 

The Opposition INDIA bloc met in New Delhi on 30 September and demanded immediate resignation of the CEC.  It announced a month-long nation-wide agitation starting October 2, including a mega rally in Delhi on November 1.  The Opposition parties collectively demanded that elections should revert to ballot papers from the EVMs and that pre-SIR electoral rolls be restored for future elections.

 

The Chief Election Commissioner has subverted democracy to benefit the ruling party.  He took over as an Election Commissioner in March 2024. He was appointed as the CEC on 18 February 2025 and will continue in office untill January 2029. His continued tenure and authoritarian-stye of functioning are dangerous to democracy. The Assembly elections he conducted in Haryana, Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal were not free and fair, as he arbitrarily disfranchised millions of voters and unilaterally added and deleted names from the voters' list  In the interest of the nation, he must immediately quit. It is untenable to continue in office after such an exposure. He cannot remain in office when all the Opposition parties and the entire nation, including prominent citizens, students’ bodies and civil society groups and advocates of the Supreme Court have demanded his resignation. And he should be held accountable for all his acts of omission and commission.