New Delhi, 1 November: The opposition INDIA bloc staged a symbolic proceeding against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday, a day before its rally at Ramlila Maidan. The CEC public impeachment, held at the official residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at 10 Rajaji Marg in New Delhi, was a political exercise rather than a legal one. It did not remove Kumar from office, and it did not start a constitutional removal process. Its purpose, as presented by the organisers, was to put the opposition’s case against the Election Commission in public and to build pressure ahead of the Delhi protest.
Former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar presided over the CEC public impeachment proceedings. More than 250 opposition MPs, political leaders, social activists, students and civil society representatives attended, according to reports of the event. The CEC public impeachment proceedings opened with the national anthem, “Jana Gana Mana”. Kharge moved a resolution seeking Kumar’s removal, and the resolution was passed unanimously by a show of hands. Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, addressed the gathering and backed the CEC public impeachment resolution.
What happened at the CEC public impeachment
Kharge presented the CEC public impeachment resolution and outlined the opposition’s case against the Election Commission. He accused the commission of manipulating electoral rolls and election results to benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Those are allegations by the opposition, and the BJP has rejected them. Kharge also said 193 opposition MPs had submitted a notice seeking Kumar’s removal seven months earlier, but that it had been rejected.
Rahul Gandhi described the proceeding as a political weapon and said the opposition had been left with no other option because institutional avenues, including Parliament, the judiciary and the Election Commission, had closed to it. He said, “Mr Gyanesh Kumar is not going to survive. We have enough proof,” and he demanded criminal proceedings against Kumar, including a case for sedition. Gandhi also said he fully supported the motion and that Kumar should be tried in court. Those remarks are Gandhi’s stated position, and they are not findings of a court.
The six charges in the CEC public impeachment
The CEC public impeachment resolution listed six charges against Kumar. The first alleged a conspiracy to steal elections by facilitating electoral manipulation and compromising the fairness of elections. The second alleged the deletion of 13.2 crore voters from electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists. The opposition put the figure at 13.2 crore in the resolution, while Gandhi, speaking at the event, put it at 13.3 crore, or 15 per cent of India’s electorate. Both figures are opposition allegations, and they are disputed by the BJP.
The third charge concerned changes to Form 6 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which the opposition said were made without adequate parliamentary oversight and could make it harder for first-time voters to register. The fourth charge alleged that electoral roll management had been centralised through the ECINET digital platform, and through ERONET, restricting the role of local Electoral Registration Officers. The fifth charge alleged that the other two Election Commissioners had been excluded from important decisions.
The sixth charge alleged that Kumar had acted at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Leaders from several opposition parties spoke at the event, including Trinamool Congress MPs Sagarika Ghose and Mahua Moitra and CPI(M) MP John Brittas, who raised regional voter roll concerns affecting women, young people and minority communities. Individuals who said their names had been wrongly deleted from rolls also attended. Under Article 324(5) of the Constitution, a Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a Supreme Court judge, so the symbolic proceeding had no legal effect on Kumar’s tenure.
BJP reply to the CEC public impeachment
Patra challenged the deletion figure directly in his reply to the CEC public impeachment. He said that if 13 crore votes had been stolen, there would have been widespread protests, and he said, “The reality is that not a single person’s vote has been stolen.” He explained the BJP’s account of the missing names by saying about 12 crore voters had permanently shifted, about 6 crore had already filled in Form 6, and notices had been sent to the rest. He said about 2.8 crore names were removed after deaths and nearly 1 crore duplicate entries were removed, and he said the SIR process was still under way, so absence from a draft list did not mean a vote had been stolen.