New Delhi: The notices moved by the opposition MPs in Parliament seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar have accused him of “acting under the thumb of the executive”, besides blaming him for “mass disenfranchisement” through the SIR exercise, and raising questions on his appointment.
The notices submitted in the two Houses of Parliament on March 12 list seven charges against the chief election commissioner (CEC) as grounds of “proved misbehaviour”, calling for his removal.
The opposition MPs, 130 in the Lok Sabha and 63 in the Rajya Sabha, have also sought a motion to remove the CEC.
Asked about the notices, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien said they are waiting for action on them.
“If the notices are not taken up by the Union government, doubts will be raised about a tacit understanding between the executive and the CEC,” said O’Brien.
The notices termed maintaining a level playing field “the heart and soul of electoral democracy”, and part of the basic structure of the Constitution. Among the charges of “proved misbehaviour”, the Opposition accused the CEC of “failure to maintain independence and constitutional fidelity”, and acting under the “thumb of the executive”.
The Opposition’s charges include the process of Kumar’s appointment as the CEC, his “partisan” press conference on August 17, 2025, targeting Rahul Gandhi, “discriminatory treatment” of Opposition and ruling party members, “obstruction” of investigations, refusal to provide “transparency tools”, and the execution of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise “in alignment with the ruling party’s political objectives”.
“The ECI’s stance on the citizenship verification aspect of the SIR, i.E., ascertaining the citizenship status of voters through electoral roll revision, is in direct alignment with the Union home minister’s stated position that an NRC (National Register of Citizens) exercise would be conducted across India.
“The CEC has effectively converted the ECI from a neutral electoral body into an instrument executing the executive’s political agenda. He also converted it from an impartial election conducting institution into a citizenship determination tribunal,” the Opposition alleged.
It also alleged that the SIR exercise in Bihar, announced just five months ahead of the Assembly polls last year, imposed “exclusionary documentation requirements” that had the effect of “systematically disenfranchising” the most vulnerable sections of society.
The Opposition referred to 65 lakh voters “excluded” in Bihar, a “staggering figure representing a significant proportion of the state’s electorate”, maintaining that the exercise played a decisive role in the NDA’s victory in the Assembly polls, with the Opposition “wiped out”.
According to the notices, the CEC’s “sudden decisions to start SIR with rocket-like alacrity in very large states slated for polls within 2-3 months, a mulish obstinacy to reconsider timelines, complete insensitivity to genuine human sufferings and deliberate ignorance of every plea of the opposition parties unless courts were approached and specific directions issued reflected the inherently biased mindset and approach of Gyanesh Kumar”.
The notices claimed that the “Bihar model” was replicated in other states, and in West Bengal, the draft electoral rolls revealed the deletion of approximately 58 lakh names from an initial electorate of 7.66 crore, while over 60 lakh voters remain in the “under adjudication” category, leaving their voting status uncertain just weeks before the Assembly elections.
