India’s election commission is facing a serious credibility crisis following allegations that chief Gyanesh Kumar took consequential decisions over the repeated objections of fellow commissioners despite not having the authority to do so.
The controversy comes as the commission conducts a nationwide revision of electoral rolls known as the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR.
The commission claims the SIR is intended to remove the names of people who have died or moved away, who are registered more than once or otherwise ineligible while ensuring that eligible voters remain on the rolls.
But the exercise has faced criticism over the scale of deletions and the documents that many people have been asked to furnish to be listed as voters.
The Indian Express reported the SIR had led to the removal of around 130 million names from draft electoral rolls across the country.
Since the SIR started, millions of voters have complained that their names have been left out of the rolls for often unexplained reasons. They have described the new voter-registration process as cumbersome and requiring documents that many do not possess.
Opposition parties have argued that the exercise has led to the mass exclusion of legitimate voters. The election commission and the BJP have denied allegations that the exercise has been designed to benefit the ruling party.
This week, the Indian Express reported that election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had conveyed objections at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions about voter registration, electoral rolls and the database used to maintain them. They reportedly said that some of the decisions had been taken without their knowledge or approval.
The law requires the election body to take decisions by a majority of its three commissioners, including the chief, who does not enjoy overruling powers.
In a statement signed by a mid-ranking official rather than any of the commissioners, the election body defended its decision-making process, saying that “differing views” were a routine part of deliberations.
“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” it said. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”
The reported disagreements are especially significant because they concern the administration and security of electoral rolls, one of the commission’s core responsibilities.
According to the Express, the two commissioners questioned whether certain communications and decisions had been issued without the required approval of the full commission.
Opposition parties have long accused the commission of favouring the BJP, particularly through the handling of the electoral rolls.
Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly alleged “vote theft”.
The report about disquiet within the commission has given the opposition new ammunition.
On Wednesday, Mr Gandhi accused the commission officials of “treason”. “Vote theft is a crime against the Indian people and a direct attack on our constitution,” he said. “The BJP, RSS, and EC who organised it have committed an act of treason. Justice will be served.” The RSS is the parent organisation of Hindu nationalist groups, including the BJP.
Opposition leaders have demanded Mr Kumar’s resignation and some have even called for legal action.
“Gyanesh Kumar was chosen by PM Modi, Amit Shah. Now two ECIs are saying he’s responsible for chaos and damage to our voting system. PM Modi and Amit Shah are both going to be investigated. Both of them are on the top of the conspiracy,” Mr Gandhi said.
Former chief election commissioner SY Quraishi told the PTI news agency he had “been a critic of the SIR from the beginning” and always wondered why Mr Sandhu and Mr Joshi had been “keeping quiet”.
“Now I realise that very silently and quietly they were protesting, they were writing notes. That is a good thing, they have gone up in my esteem,” he said.
Among the issues reportedly raised by the commissioners were changes to procedures for registering new voters and safeguards around access to the electoral database.
The Express also reported about a problem in the coastal state of Goa where officials reportedly found that they could not restore the names of voters who had been found eligible after their earlier deletion.
The commission is now being asked to provide clarity about the reported disagreements, the safeguards around its voter database, and the procedures being used to revise electoral rolls.
“Our constitution has been destroyed. It no longer has its power. It no longer functions. If our Constitution has been destroyed and our laws are illegal,” Mr Gandhi said.
“If our laws are illegal, our institutions are meaningless,” he added. “This is an attack on the idea of the basic infrastructure of the expression of every single Indian.”
On Friday, the student wing of the Congress party, the National Students’ Union of India, launched a protest in Delhi demanding the arrest of Mr Kumar.
The union alleged that serious concerns had emerged over the electoral process and voter rolls, and called for a “fair investigation”, along with greater transparency and accountability from the election body.
The Cockroach Janta Party, a Gen Z-led movement, which earlier this year forced the resignation of the education minister over a series of botched exams, also called for protests to demand the resignation of Mr Kumar.
The group described the revelations about the election body as the “hijacking of India’s democracy”.
