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Opposition parties will submit a fresh notice in both Houses of Parliament next week to move a motion for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, as the Congress-led INDIA bloc announced its plans to launch nationwide protests in over the alleged “hijacking” of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
In Goa, which goes to polls by March next year, opposition parties demanded a rollback of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the state’s electoral rolls after The Indian Express on Thursday reported how efforts by Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer to add the names of 97 voters were blocked by the ECI.
Separately, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) said that it will launch an “Election Commission Thik Karo” (fix the ECI) campaign, and threatened a “Jantar Mantar 2.0” agitation if Kumar did not quit within 48 hours for “undermining” electors’ rights. The Congress Working Committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss its planned protests.
Sources in the Congress said the motion for Kumar’s removal is being drafted and will be vetted by legal experts before being submitted in both Houses of Parliament, most likely by next week.
Addressing a press conference at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi, party leader Rahul Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Kumar were "deshdrohis" (traitors) as they had “destroyed” India's vote, and demanded that the CEC resign immediately. He advised Kumar to turn "approver", citing the example of his two colleagues, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, who he said have acknowledged that "vote chori" (theft of votes) is taking place.
Gandhi said a big reason for Sandhu and Joshi putting on record their dissent on SIR was the pressure that the Congress put by launching its campaign on “vote theft” from February 2025 onwards. The campaign included his dissent note as leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha on the appointment of Kumar, and the flagging of alleged vote-rigging in Maharashtra, Haryana and Karnataka.
Gandhi held press conferences alleging “vote theft” in 2025 and the Congress also launched a “vote adhikar yatra” in August-September 2025. The Congress leader said Sandhu and Joshi recorded their first dissent on October 25, 2025, a little over a month after a press conference in which Gandhi alleged “vote theft” in Karnataka’s Aland assembly constituency.
Meanwhile, amid questions on whether its press note on Wednesday was approved by all the three Election Commissioners, the ECI on Thursday “clarified” that its statement on Wednesday was “issued with the approval of the full Commission”, citing what it called the “regular practice of issuing press notes at the ECI”.
Wednesday’s press note asserted that all ECI’s official orders, decisions and administrative directions carry full legal sanction and that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution.
The ECI issued a press note in response to reports published in The Indian Express on Wednesday that the ECI’s SIR, in which names of 130 million electors have been struck off the voter rolls, was been questioned within the poll panel by two of the three Election Commissioners, Sandhu and Joshi. It stated that Sandhu and Joshi have formally objected, on record, on at least 14 occasions over the last 10 months to decisions taken and orders issued under CEC Kumar, without their knowledge.
In a follow-up, the paper reported on Thursday on how the “centralisation of ECINet”, the tech backbone of the poll panel, and “cutting out state ground-level officials” played out in Goa. Among other issues, Sandhu and Joshi flagged how Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) did not have access to additions and deletions of electors in their jurisdiction.
A notice moved by 73 opposition MPs on April 24 seeking Kumar's removal is pending in the Rajya Sabha. The fresh notice comes after seven of the 73 MPs who had signed the earlier notice joined the BJP.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi alleged that the Congress, by opposing the ECI's "transparent process," is "in reality, protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators". The BJP Rajya Sabha MP defended the changes to ECI's Form 6, which new voters must fill. He said the Congress should explain why an 18-year-old's name should be added to the electoral rolls without that person furnishing their family records and documents.
