RAHUL GANDHI URGES GYANESH KUMAR TO ‘TURN APPROVER’ AMID EC CONTROVERSY

September 24, 2026

NEW DELHI: Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday called on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to “come clean” over the controversy surrounding the functioning of the Election Commission and urged him to turn approver, alleging that the electoral process had been compromised. Gandhi also demanded Kumar’s immediate resignation.

Addressing a press conference, Gandhi alleged that the reported internal objections within the three-member Election Commission raised serious questions about the conduct of electoral-roll revisions and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). He said the opposition would continue pursuing the matter and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah would face investigation over what he described as wrongdoing. These allegations are political claims and have not been established by a judicial finding.

The remarks followed a report that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions involving voter registration, deletion and restoration of names, electoral-roll data and administrative procedures. The objections were addressed to or copied to the CEC, according to the report.

The Election Commission has maintained that internal observations and disagreements are part of institutional deliberations and that final decisions, including those concerning SIR, were taken unanimously. Separately, the 2023 law governing the Election Commission contains statutory protections for commissioners concerning criminal proceedings related to official acts, an issue that has itself become part of the current political and legal debate.