Following is a statement issued by Citizens for Democracy demanding the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar and the Repeal of SIR in its entirety.

The cat is out of the bag. It is confirmed, what the world already knew, that the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar is Modi’s man. The CEC worked for the benefit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, manipulated elections, all by himself. Gyanesh Kumar obediently followed orders of his political bosses, the Modi-Shah duo. He let loose carnage on voters lists in the name of SIR and disenfranchised 13 crore voters across the country. He ignored 14 dissenting notes in the last 10 months written by his brother Election Commissioners Shri Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Shri Vivek Joshi, and did everything that these two men thought was unauthorized and illegal.

The Indian Express correspondent Ritika Chopra unearthed the shady activities going on in the Election Commission of India ruled by one man. Gyanesh Kumar even sidelined and ignored other two Election Commissioners; and carried on the nefarious Modi-Shah plans to throttle democracy. He does not deserve to occupy the esteemed seat of CEC. In the interest of democracy in the country, CFD demands his resignation. It has become known that no action over the last 10 months was sanctioned by the majority of ECs. The other two were not consulted at any stage; their objections were brazenly ignored. CEC ran the ECI as if it was his fiefdom. The man who did not follow democratic norms within the organisation cannot be expected to safeguard democracy in the country.

Under his stewardship the Election Commission did everything that the ECs Sandhu and Joshi considered Illegal.

1. He initiated the SIR process with a view to removing voters from the voters list and succeeded in removing 13 crore voters across the country.
2. Despite the objections from the two ECs the Form-6 was amended. ECI had no powers to change the form but a question was added to the form asking the new voter to give information about his parents and grand parents’ status in the previous role.
3. Gyanesh Kumar surreptitiously managed to centralize voter enrollment process. Voters can be included on the ERONET portal by Election Registration Officer at the state level who enjoyed full access but it was blocked, and EROs had to seek permission for access from the Head Quarters in Delhi. This way, the new entrants were blocked.
4. In West Bengal while over 27 lakh voters were deleted on the ground of logical discrepancy, there were over 16 lakh applications to delete voters. The dissenting ECs asked who authorised them to file such appeals on behalf of the Election Commission. No answer. Things did not change.
5. In case of Goa, despite the ERO’s approval valid voters were rejected by the software.

It is baffling, however, why the two dissenter ECs, who were humiliated, chose to keep quiet and did not resign. They were not treated as equals, which the law provides; yet they meekly joined Gyanesh Kumar in addressing Press Conferences that he used to defend all his misdeeds.

CFD would also like to state that the rot could have been prevented at its first signs when the parliament passed a bill to appoint a panel to select ECs. The panel consists of three- Prime Minister, a minister appointed by him and the Leader of the opposition. The Bill gave absolute powers to the prime minister to have his man at the top post with the Leader of the Opposition reduced to a permanent minority. The bill was passed by both houses of the parliament and sent to the President of India for her assent.

At this stage, Hon’ble President could have returned the bill to parliament for reconsideration. However, she chose to ignore the blatant misuse of the government’s majority and gave her assent. The 2023 Act was the first step in rendering the Election Commission a government department. An institution was killed.

If it were not enough, the democracy was dealt a death-blow by the Supreme Court too when they ruled that the SIR process in Bihar was in line with the Representation of Peoples Act. Gyanesh Kumar launched the SIR exercise in Bihar, which was widely seen as a weapon to debar migrant workers from voting. Bizarrely, Supreme Court observed that who were left out of the voters list in West Bengal had to wait until the next election.

This suited the CEC, as his immediate task was to debar more than 33 lakh voters from exercising their right to vote in the 2026 elections. The very large number of deleted voters should have alarmed the Supreme Court but it took the deletion of a large number of voters casually. They were asked to wait until their appeals were cleared. Effectively, the Court accepted the right of CEC to debar so many voters, and willy-nilly became an accomplice in the game of the ruling party executed through their obedient CEC. Instead of postponing their deletion, the Supreme Court decided to suspend their right to vote.

Gyanesh Kumar imposed on the country the SIR process only to benefit BJP, and the West Bengal results have proved it where, in some constituencies more voters were deleted than the margin of victory or defeat.

We, therefore, demand:

• The Supreme Court set up a larger bench and declare SIR unconstitutional, especially in view of what has been revealed. It was not a majority decision to carry out SIR in Bihar, West Bengal or any state;
• For his completely one-sided , pro-government behaviour and lack of integrity, Gyanesh Kumar should resign;
• Previous electoral roles should be restored and any action to scrutiny of electoral roles should start at the Gram Sabha level where there is the least possibility of malpractice or fictitious voters being enrolled.

All Civil Society groups and political parties should come together in support of these demands.

Issued by

Shashi Shekhar Prasad Singh