After a newspaper report revealed on Wednesday that two of the three Election Commissioners (ECs) had repeatedly put on record their dissent over the poll panel’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Opposition demanded the removal and arrest of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. The Election Commission of India (ECI) maintained that all its decisions over the past year were “unanimous” and that differing views were a normal part of its deliberations.

As part of the ECI’s SIR to clean up electoral rolls, which began in Bihar in June 2025, the names of more than 130 million electors have been struck off the draft electoral rolls in 30 states and Union Territories so far. During this period, the ECI has conducted Assembly polls in four states and one Union Territory, including Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. No SIR of the electoral rolls was conducted for the Assembly polls in Assam. The SIR has also been challenged in the Supreme Court (SC).

On Wednesday, The Indian Express reported that SIR had been questioned within the ECI itself by two of the three ECs, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The report said that Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected, on record, at least 14 times over the past 10 months, including four times on a single day, to decisions taken and orders issued without their knowledge, they said.

In its defence, the ECI issued a clarification in the morning based on “ECI sources”, which said that all its decisions, including those relating to SIR, “have been unanimous and with the approval of both the ECs” and the CEC. Later in the day, the ECI, in a “press note” signed by a deputy director-level official, asserted that all its official orders, decisions, and administrative directions carry full legal sanction and that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution. It said suggestions from the ECs were aimed at improving electoral processes and maintained that the final decisions of the full commission, including those relating to SIR, were unanimous. However, Sandhu and Joshi have yet to publicly speak about the objections attributed to them in the newspaper’s report.

According to the report, Sandhu and Joshi recorded dissenting notes on the “unauthorised and illegal” changes to Form 6, which first-time voters must fill out, and the ECI’s information technology (IT) head restricting field officers’ access to ECINet, the poll panel’s technology backbone. The two also flagged orders issued in the ECI’s name without the full commission’s approval; learning about the ECI’s new IT modules and portals from media reports; not receiving the agenda and minutes of the ECI’s meetings; officers being sent on foreign trips without the commission’s approval; and the centralisation of the electoral rolls database. Joshi and Sandhu also flagged to the Cabinet secretary that officials were redistributing work without the ECI’s knowledge. Sandhu also questioned the 1.61 million appeals filed against voters that judicial officers had included in West Bengal’s electoral rolls, asking who had authorised appeals on the ECI’s behalf before the West Bengal tribunals.

The Congress dubbed the row “Gyaneshgate”, while the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress factions demanded CEC’s impeachment and fresh Assembly elections in West Bengal using the voter list that existed before SIR. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) downplayed the differences within the poll panel, calling them “a reflection of pure democracy”.

In a post on X, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and the ECI had committed an act of treason by organising “vote chori” and that “justice will be served”. “Vote chori is a crime against the Indian people and a direct attack on our Constitution,” Gandhi said.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge asked whether the Rajya Sabha chairman would now decide on a notice submitted by 73 Opposition Members of Parliament on April 24 seeking CEC’s removal. The monsoon session had not yet been prorogued, he pointed out.

Congress general secretary communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh alleged that the CEC had functioned as a “hatchet man” for Union Home Minister Amit Shah and that his actions had the knowledge and support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“It has now been proven that the BJP and the ECI looted the West Bengal Assembly polls,” former West Bengal chief minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee alleged in a Facebook Live. “Re-election must be held in West Bengal with the old voter list,” she added. Banerjee said INDIA bloc partners had discussed the matter and would meet soon. She also called for nationwide protests as long as Kumar remained CEC.

Former Delhi CM and Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal also demanded the CEC’s arrest. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President M K Stalin said the CEC “must go” and had no right to continue in office. He alleged that SIR was riddled with irregularities and had sparked widespread unrest, particularly in West Bengal.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, party spokesperson Sambit Patra said media reports about commissioners expressing differing views during official deliberations reflected “pure democracy”. If they did not communicate and exchange views, Opposition parties would accuse them of being “yes men” of the government, he said.

Congress spokesperson and SC advocate Abhishek Singhvi said a 1995 SC judgment categorically observed that every EC “must have a say in decision-making”. The SC judgment said that if the CEC was considered superior in the sense that his word was final, he would render the ECs non-functional or ornamental, Singhvi said.

Singhvi said the CEC, “who doesn’t deserve to occupy his post for one more second”, had made his colleagues, the ECs, “ornamental”. Singhvi alleged that the CEC had “hijacked” the ECI from his own colleagues.

The Congress spokesperson flagged the issue of the changes to Form 6, pointing out that the ECs had termed them unauthorised and illegal, and referred to the SC judgment that the majority view should have been honoured. He said Form 6 could only be amended by the government, and neither by the CEC nor by the entire ECI.

Singhvi said that two of the ECs had flagged that hundreds of electoral registration officers could not access the ECI’s portal to view the names of voters included in or deleted from the electoral rolls.

Former CECs S Y Quraishi and O P Rawat also flagged the alleged illegality of the changes to Form 6. Rawat, who served as CEC in 2018, said the manner in which Form 6 was changed was “absolutely wrong and illegal”, and termed SIR a “Frankenstein which has created fear in the minds of voters everywhere”.

Quraishi, who served as CEC from 2010 to 2012, said the two serving ECs were right to argue that an addition to Form 6 required an amendment to the rules.

Rawat also criticised the reported centralisation of control over the electoral roll database, saying software could not be allowed to prevent field officials from acting on decisions they had reached after examining a voter’s case. He asked why the two commissioners had not raised their concerns publicly earlier.