Appointed Chief Election Commissioner in February 2025, Gyanesh Kumar now presides over the biggest overhaul of India's voter lists in two decades, and the loudest argument over whether it is making elections cleaner or simply smaller.

A bureaucrat at the centre

Gyanesh Kumar is a 1988-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre. He took charge as Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on 19 February 2025, succeeding Rajiv Kumar, after a late-night appointment that Rahul Gandhi, then a member of the selection panel, opposed in a written dissent note. Before that, he had served as Election Commissioner since March 2024, and earlier held senior posts in the Union government, including in the Home Ministry and as Cooperation Secretary.

It is his handling of one exercise, the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, that has made him a lightning rod.

What is SIR?

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a door-to-door verification of the voter list. The Election Commission says its purpose is to ensure that no eligible elector is left out and no ineligible one is included. It began in Bihar in June 2025. On 27 October 2025, Kumar announced its second phase across 12 states and Union Territories, covering about 51 crore voters, with enumeration starting on 4 November. He described it as the ninth such exercise since Independence, the last having run in 2002-04, and said the schedule for the remaining states would follow. Aadhaar, he said, would be accepted as proof of identity, not of citizenship. 

The case against

Critics say the exercise has been a purge dressed up as housekeeping. Bihar's electorate fell from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore, after about 65 lakh names were dropped from the draft roll and a further 3.66 lakh were deleted before the final list. In West Bengal, around 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9 per cent of the pre-revision electorate, had been removed by 6 April, ahead of the Assembly election. The opposition has long argued that poor, migrant and Dalit voters bear the brunt.

The Commission's answer is that deletions reflect reality. Of the 65 lakh names flagged in Bihar, it said, 22 lakh were of people who had died, and the rest had moved away or were registered more than once. Kumar has also pointed to the absence of appeals after Bihar's final roll as a sign the exercise worked. Analysts sceptical of the exercise reply that silence is not proof: one explainer argues that the lack of appeals may measure how hard it is to appeal, not how accurate the roll is. 

Aland and the 'vote chori' charge

Gandhi has taken the fight to Kumar personally. At a press conference on 18 September 2025, he cited Karnataka's Aland constituency, where an attempt was made to delete 6,018 votes before the 2023 Assembly election, and alleged that the Karnataka CID had written 18 letters in 18 months seeking technical data, such as destination IP addresses, device ports and OTP trails, that the Commission had not supplied. [9, 10] He accused Kumar of shielding what he called 'vote chors'. [9] Local reports describe a forged-application conspiracy uncovered in Aland, with a police case registered. 

The Election Commission rejected the claim as baseless, saying the information sought had been given to the state CID by Karnataka's chief electoral officer two years earlier. The dispute over who holds what data remains unresolved in public.

What the Supreme Court said in May: the Bihar ruling

On 27 May 2026, a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi, delivered its verdict on the petitions challenging the Bihar SIR, the case brought by the Association for Democratic Reforms. The court upheld the exercise as legally valid, finding that the Commission's powers under Article 324 and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act cover such a revision. It held that free and fair elections depend on the integrity and accuracy of the rolls, and directed that voters excluded during the exercise must have routes to adjudication. 

Because the case arose from Bihar, the ruling is not a finding on every later phase. The Commission relies on it as the principal justification for the later exercises, and reports say its principles now guide the drives in other states, but how those drives have been run is being tested separately, as the October proceedings below show.

Trouble inside the Commission

The pressure intensified in September 2026, when The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had put objections on record at least 14 times in ten months. The objections, according to the report, concerned voter registration, the deletion and restoration of names, and access to the electoral-roll database, and in several instances the two said decisions had been taken without their knowledge. Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal seized on the report to say that Kumar was effectively running the Commission alone. 

The Commission replied that internal notes and differing views are a routine part of deliberation and that its decisions over the past year were unanimous. The reporting establishes that the two commissioners raised objections; it does not establish that misconduct by Kumar or the Commission has been proved. 

Back before the Supreme Court: notices and the Form 6 remark

On Monday, 5 October, the dispute reached the Supreme Court. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana issued notices to the Centre, the Election Commission, Kumar, Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi, and two senior Commission officials on pleas alleging that the poll panel took 14 decisions between October 2025 and August 2026 without the approval of the other two commissioners. Responses were sought within a week. A connected petition by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi was tagged with the lead plea. 

The court declined to suspend Kumar or restrain him from taking decisions, saying it could not act ex parte and needed first to see the decisions in question. It also signalled what could follow: if decisions were taken neither unanimously nor by majority, as the law requires, they could be annulled, and it said it may examine the immunity clause in the law that protects the CEC. The petitioner's counsel argued that the electoral roll itself had been vitiated by unilateral decisions, a claim the court has yet to test. 

In the same hearing, the Chief Justice said the court had not approved any modified Form 6 used to enrol new voters during the SIR. That cut against the Commission's statement, in a press note of 26 September, that the declaration attached to Form 6 for the SIR had been upheld by the court. The Commission maintains that Form 6 itself has not been amended and that the declaration is an additional requirement applying only during the SIR; it has reportedly since removed the declaration from the online form in states where the final rolls are published. Commentary sympathetic to the Commission argues that the May judgment recognised its residual authority to adapt documentation for a revision, so long as changes are not arbitrary, and that non-approval of one version is not a finding that it lacked power. Legal analysts note that the question now is whether an extra enrolment requirement can be imposed without amending the form, and that calling it an annexure rather than a modification does not settle that. 

Old allegations resurface

The scrutiny has also dragged up older material. In November 2006, when Kumar was secretary of the Kerala Public Works Department, a Malaysian project official, Lee See Been, died by suicide in Kuala Lumpur. Reports say notes he left named several officials, Kumar among them; Kumar was moved out of the department, and a vigilance inquiry followed. Reporting does not describe a conclusive finding against him. CPI(M) leader T.M. Thomas Isaac recently revived the episode. Separately, former Kerala chief secretary Jiji Thomson has claimed that in 2016 Kumar asked whether he would contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election as a BJP candidate from Pathanamthitta. Reports dated 4 October say Kerala's Home Department has now ordered a fresh Vigilance probe into the 2006 matter. 

None of these claims has been proved. Kumar's response to the 2006 allegations and to Thomson's account was not available at the time of writing.

From Parliament to the street

On Friday, 2 October, Gandhi Jayanti, protests demanding Kumar's resignation were held in two cities. In Delhi, AAP leaders, Congress workers and student groups including AISA, SFI and NSUI gathered or tried to gather at Jantar Mantar. Police detained hundreds, among them former chief minister Atishi, activist Yogendra Yadav and AISA president Neha Bora; Delhi Police sources put the citywide figure at around 1,100. 

In Mumbai, the Cockroach Janta Party, a movement that began online in May 2026 as political satire, had announced a nationwide campaign for Kumar's resignation starting at Shivaji Park. The police had denied permission for the gathering, citing a Bombay High Court order, but the protest went ahead, with reports putting the crowd anywhere from hundreds to thousands. 

During the protest, a 75-year-old Thane resident who had come to watch the demonstration complained of chest pain at around 5 pm and died at a nearby hospital. Police said doctors attributed his death to a heart attack. 

Mumbai Police later registered an FIR at Shivaji Park police station against the organisers and 400 to 500 unidentified supporters for holding the protest despite the denial of permission. It followed a complaint by Siddhi Deolekar, an advocate who lives in the area. She said she supports the right to protest but objected to demonstrators blocking roads outside homes, and argued that venues such as Azad Maidan or Jantar Mantar were available. The reports do not link the FIR to the man's death.

An argument that will not end soon

Both sides can point to something solid. The Commission has a Supreme Court ruling on the Bihar exercise, rolls that had gone two decades without an intensive revision, and removals it attributes to deaths, migration and duplication. Its critics have large deletion numbers, a dissent that has leaked from within the Commission, a court now demanding answers on how decisions were taken, and a chief whose own past is being reopened. For an institution whose authority rests on being seen as a neutral umpire, the last of these may matter as much as any ruling. How the Commission answers, in the open and with data, will decide whether SIR is remembered as a clean-up or as a cleaving.

References:

1. Gulf News, "Gyanesh Kumar, IAS officer from the Kerala cadre, appointed as India's new Chief Election Commissioner", Feb 2025. https://gulfnews.com
2. Wikipedia, "Gyanesh Kumar (background)", accessed 12 Oct 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyanesh_Kumar
3. The Tribune, "Second phase of SIR in 12 states, UTs from Nov 4; exercise to span 3 months", 27 Oct 2025. https://www.tribuneindia.com
4. All India Radio (newsonair.gov.in), "Election Commission to Conduct Special Intensive Revision in 12 States, UTs", 27 Oct 2025. https://www.newsonair.gov.in
5. The Tribune, "Bihar voter count drops to 7.42 cr; 65 lakh deleted, 21 lakh added during SIR", 30 Sep 2025. https://www.tribuneindia.com
6. Scroll. in, "SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial", Sep 2026. https://scroll.in
7. The Tribune, "Only 1.2 lakh of 65 lakh left-out Bihar voters file claims: EC", Aug 2025. https://www.tribuneindia.com
8. The Wire, "Analysis and Explainer on How the SIR Excluded Voters at Scale (analysis)", 5 Oct 2026. https://m.thewire.in
9. The Tribune, "CEC shielding 'vote chors', undermining democracy: Rahul Gandhi; election panel rubbishes claim", 18 Sep 2025. https://www.tribuneindia.com
10. Deccan Herald, "Rahul accuses Chief Election Commissioner of stonewalling CID's request for info on Karnataka's Aland vote deletion", Sep 2025. https://www.deccanherald.com
11. Deccan Herald, "Aland case stands as living proof for Rahul Gandhi's 'vote chori' campaign: BR Patil", 2025. https://www.deccanherald.com
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14. Daily Excelsior, "Supreme Court Upholds Sir of Electoral Rolls", 27 May 2026. https://www.dailyexcelsior.com
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16. The Quint, "2/3 Election Commissioners Objected to SIR Process 14 Times in 10 Months: Report", Sep 2026. https://www.thequint.com
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23. Open Magazine, "CJI says Supreme Court Didn't Approve Modified Form 6 Cited by EC in SIR", 5 Oct 2026. https://openthemagazine.com
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25. Outlook India, "Gyanesh Kumar Named In Suicide Post? CPM Leader Thomas Isaac Revisits 2006 Controversy", Sep 2026. https://www.outlookindia.com
26. NE Now, "Gyanesh Kumar faces renewed scrutiny over alleged BJP approach and 2006 suicide-note claims", Sep 2026. https://nenow.in
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28. WION, "Kerala reopens 2006 vigilance probe into engineer's suicide note naming CEC Gyanesh Kumar", Oct 2026. https://www.wionews.com
29. The Quint, "Mass Detentions in Delhi as Protesters Demand CEC Gyanesh Kumar's Resignation", 2 Oct 2026. https://www.thequint.com
30. India West, "Around 1,100 Detained in Delhi During Protest Against Gyanesh Kumar", 2 Oct 2026. https://indiawest.com
31. Wikipedia, "Cockroach Janta Party (background)", accessed 12 Oct 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach_Janta_Party
32. Gulte, "Cockroach Janta Party Is Back, This Time With a Bigger Target (published ahead of the 2 Oct protest)", Oct 2026. https://www.gulte.com
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35. LatestLY (PTI), "Mumbai: 75-Year-Old Man Dies of Heart Attack During CJP Protest at Shivaji Park", Oct 2026. https://www.latestly.com
36. Bombay Samachar, "75-Year-Old Dies After Suffering Heart Attack At Mumbai's Shivaji Park Protest", 3 Oct 2026. https://english.bombaysamachar.com

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