‘EC has become dictatorial’: Ex-bureaucrats demand CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation

A group of former bureaucrats on Monday demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for alleged irregularities in the conduct of special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the country.

In an open letter, the Constitutional Conduct Group said that the Election Commission’s functioning has become “imperious, autocratic and dictatorial” because of Kumar. It added that his actions around the SIR exercise represented “serious infringement” of constitutional functioning and legality.

On Saturday, the group had called on the Election Commission to scrap the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The letter came amid similar demands by the Opposition and civil society groups for Kumar’s removal over alleged irregularities in the functioning of the poll panel. The demands came after The Indian Express reported on Wednesday that two election commissioners had objected to decisions related to the SIR.

The newspaper’s investigation showed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to the poll panel’s decisions about the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was...

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