India's opposition holds mock "impeachment" of chief election commissioner
The INDIA bloc staged a symbolic parliament in New Delhi and accused CEC Gyanesh Kumar of mass voter deletions to help the ruling BJP.
India's opposition INDIA bloc on Saturday staged a symbolic "public impeachment" of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The Hindu reported that it adopted a motion against him unanimously by a show of hands.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge moved the motion, which set out six charges. According to The Hindu, he accused Mr Kumar of overseeing a conspiracy to manipulate elections and of deleting voters' names through the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The other charges were changing Form 6 without parliamentary oversight, centralising rolls through ERONET/ECINET, shutting the other two election commissioners out of decisions, and acting at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
The session ran for three and a half hours in the garden of Mr Kharge's official residence at 10 Rajaji Marg and was set up to look like the Lok Sabha. Former Speaker Meira Kumar presided. NDTV reported that she is 81 and held the Speaker's chair from 2009 to 2014. Sonia Gandhi sat in the front row. Opposition MPs were joined by civil society representatives, student leaders and voters who said their names had been wrongly struck off the rolls.
Lok Sabha Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi called the gathering a "political weapon" aimed at everyone who had "colluded" to destroy Indians' votes. He said Mr Kumar should be removed and tried for treason. He also said the opposition had turned to a public hearing because every institutional avenue was closed to it.
The figures for alleged deletions differed within The Hindu's report. Its summary of the charges put the number at 13.2 crore voters. In his speech Mr Gandhi said 13.3 crore, or nearly 15 per cent of the electorate, had been deleted, and compared that with a gap of three percentage points between the two sides at the 2024 general election.
Mr Kharge said 193 opposition MPs had lodged notices in both houses seeking Mr Kumar's removal seven months ago, and that these had been rejected. He called for repeal of the law that gives the commissioner lifelong immunity and rejected the BJP's claim that the opposition was protecting "infiltrators" on the rolls.
Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose alleged this year's West Bengal assembly election had been "stolen". Her colleague Mahua Moitra claimed 71 per cent of those removed from the state's rolls were Muslims and 51 per cent were women. CPI(M) MP John Brittas said he had attended two hearings himself to prove he was eligible to vote. Independent Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal called Mr Kumar a "pawn on a chess board".
Neither outlet carried a response from the Election Commission. Mr Gandhi warned officials working under Mr Kumar that legal protection would not shield them forever and claimed the commissioner would not survive in his post once the opposition made its evidence public.
Sources: The Hindu, INDIA bloc holds symbolic ‘public impeachment’ of CEC Gyanesh Kumar on six charges; NDTV, 'Madam Speaker' At Mock Parliament: Meira Kumar Returns To Chair, Her Polite Sternness Intact.
