Punish the Thief who Stole from the Vault of Democracy!
The blatant pro-BJP bias shown by the Cheif Election Commissioner, and en masse, mafia-style vote manipulation, has served as trump cards for the ruling regime in election after election. This must be stopped. Sir has to be scrapped. Gyanesh Kumar and his masters must face the consequences.
By Ajith Pillai in Chennai
The chorus of voices demanding Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation are growing louder by the day. Former judges, eminent lawyers, bureaucrats, ex-election commissioners, political parties, students, journalists and ordinary citizens are united in their call: the CEC must go. And the Election Commission (EC) must be urgently reformed if it is to restore its credibility and regain public trust.
The BJP government now has two options: It could either yield to public pressure and advise Gyanesh Kumar to step down, or it could continue to shield him, since he has been effectively propped up by it. It could well be toying with the second option. After all, the CEC’s questionable actions so far have worked decidedly to the advantage of the ruling regime at the Centre, and the principal party in power.
Also, if the government lets go of Gyanesh Kumar, it would be admitting his guilt. Therefore, the logical question is: under whose instructions was the CEC acting?
The trail is likely to lead to the very top of the establishment.
In an informal discussion, a former member of the higher judiciary laid bare the gravity of the situation with this analogy: Imagine being entrusted with a bank’s high-security vault. Your duty is to keep illicit cash and jewellery out, routinely inspect its contents, remove anything counterfeit or compromised, and send suspect valuables for evaluation.
Now imagine betraying that trust. You collude with the local mafia and allow it to cart away genuine valuables and replace them with fakes. The mafia is thrilled.
But when the fraud is exposed, can you escape accountability with a confession and a promise never to do it again? Would the bank forgive you?
The answer is fairly obvious. A serious breach of trust cannot be pardoned on assurances. Unless, of course, somebody high up in the bank management backs the mafia!
Anyone who believes in democracy will agree that the electoral rolls maintained by the Election Commission are a national treasure and the currency on which democracy runs. These rolls determine who is eligible to vote, in a democracy, where the doctrine of One Nation-One Vote is a reassertion of the most crucial fundamental right of a citizen, under the sanctity of the Indian Constitution.
Any manipulation of the voters' list would therefore amount to committing fraud in the sacred vault of democracy. Hence, clearly, whoever is responsible has to be held accountable and punished.
Before the landmark investigation by Indian Express reporters Ritika Chopra and Damini Nath established that the Election Commission had carried out large-scale illegal voter deletions, Gyanesh Kumar remained defiantly in denial and backed by the government. This, despite widespread belief in the nation that the arbitrary, mass deletions of voters, especially from certain communities and demographic profiles, was a blatant violation of constitutional rights.
It was also widely believed and alleged that successive assembly polls were being conducted in a dubious manner with suspect EVMs, and that the “biased” EC is brazenly operating as a ‘B’ team of the BJP, a belief rubbed in with well-researched facts and evidence in public platforms by Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi.
It all became transparent with what Mamata Bannerjee terms “stolen elections” or a “dacoity” by Gyanesh Kumar, as in the Bengal assembly polls – under the shadow of the deployment of a huge contingent of para military forces by the Union Home Ministry.
Clearly, democracy seemed to under a most serious threat.
We now know that ‘Operation Delete’ was executed through a dubiously repurposed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. Since its launch in June 2025, ahead of the Bihar and West Bengal elections, the exercise has disenfranchised 13 crore voters, or more. The BJP won both Bihar and West Bengal, with its victories widely attributed to the deletions from the electoral rolls.
SIR was a carefully planned, centrally directed and computerised operation conducted under Gyanesh Kumar’s watch in blatant disregard of established norms and regulations. The CEC also brushed aside several objections of two fellow commissioners on the EC and pressed ahead with the mass deletions, showing scant regard for transparency or accountability.
There are sufficient reasons to believe that the revision of the poll list was clearly done with the intention to erode the vote bank of opposition parties while bolstering the support base of the BJP and its allies. The exercise is widely seen as part of a long-term strategy to entrench the saffron party’s dominance across the country for a long time to come – by hook or crook.
The Express investigation has prompted journalists to revisit allegations of organised electoral rigging through voter additions, deletions and EVM manipulation, reported in elections since the 2019 general election.
A revealing report by Quint journalist Poonam Aggarwal examined the 2019 general election, in which the BJP-led NDA returned to power. Citing Election Commission data, she found that votes counted exceeded votes cast in more than 220 of the 373 constituencies that went to the polls during the first four phases. The remaining constituencies recorded vote deficits.
The Election Commission offered no explanation. Instead, after receiving a questionnaire from Quint, it removed the data from its website.
Incidentally, the discrepancies were substantial: surplus votes ranged from 8,000 to 18,000 per constituency, while deficits were between 8,000 to 19,000.
In the 2024 general election, an inexplicable discrepancy emerged between the percentage of votes polled and counted. According to a report by Maharashtra-based Vote for Democracy (VFD), a civil society group comprising retired civil servants and bureaucrats, the nationwide variance amounted to 4.65 crore votes. The report estimated that these additional votes helped the BJP secure 79 more seats, enabling it to pull ahead of a resurgent INDIA coalition.
Similar discrepancies in votes polled and votes counted have also emerged in assembly elections in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.
Today, a previously unacknowledged vector in the BJP’s remarkable string of electoral victories over the past six or seven years is receiving serious scrutiny: allegations of systematic rigging aided by government-friendly elements within the Election Commission, the police and the administrative machinery.
Previously, after every such victory, self-styled pundits from both liberal and Right-wing camps would shake their heads in disbelief, attributing the BJP’s electoral success to a leadership they considered far more attuned to ground realities than the entire opposition. Clichéd expressions—“feeling the pulse of the people,” “understanding the caste matrix,” “devising political strategies that convert goodwill and popularity into votes,” “getting the message right,” “ensuring excellent booth-level management,” and “mobilising committed and enthusiastic cadres”—were routinely invoked to rationalise the BJP’s victories.
But a darker explanation can no longer be ignored. Electoral manipulation and vote fixing may also have been decisive X-factors, giving the BJP an edge election after election.
Opposition parties that alleged electoral manipulation were dismissed as bad losers. When Rahul Gandhi presented electoral rolls containing ghost voters, including an entry bearing a Brazilian model’s photograph sourced from the internet, sections of the media trivialised the evidence. TV channels interviewed the model, who stated that she had never voted in an Indian election. However, that did not explain how her photograph appeared on the rolls.
The same tactic was used to deflect concerns about voters whose names appeared multiple times. They were asked whether they had voted more than once, and their denials were presented as proof that the Leader of the Opposition’s allegations were baseless. But that missed the point entirely. Duplicate entries may not have been used by the individuals named. But they could have enabled impersonation, or manipulation of EVMs between polling and counting.
The commentariat, led by aggressive television anchors, posed another facile question: Why does the Opposition allege malpractice only when it loses, but remain silent when it wins? The question does not disprove the evidence. It merely evades it.
One school of thought holds that the BJP deliberately allows opposition parties to win in states where it has only a marginal presence. These outcomes are then cited as evidence that the electoral process is credible. Critics further allege that such states are deprived of central funding to reinforce the BJP’s “double-engine” narrative: that effective governance and economic progress are possible only when the party controls both the state and central governments.
What is urgently required is a mass movement against the BJP's electoral malpractice and its takeover of the Election Commission to serve its vested interests. Huge protests like the one organised by the Cockroach Janta Party should serve as a pointer.
Despite State repression and relentless police brutality against peaceful protesters and students, as in Jantar Mantar, a sustained mass campaign on the streets, and across the country, in which all political parties, the youth, students, and citizens participate, could set the stage for radically reforming the Election Commission and ensuring that elections are truly free, fair and without EVM manipulation or illegal deletions or additions in the electoral rolls.
Besides, those who indulged repeatedly in the criminal conduct of mass deletions of the names of Indian citizens from the voters’ lists, and, thereby, the sinister manipulation of election results in favour of the BJP, should be held accountable and punished. And this includes, their masters in top positions.
Let us harness the storm and not let the clouds dissipate.
Ajith Pillai is Co-Editor, independentink.in. A seasoned journalist working in the profession for 40 years, he has reported out of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and Kashmir on a broad spectrum of events related to politics, crime, conflict and social change. He has worked with leading publications, including The Sunday Observer, Indian Post, Pioneer, The Week and India Today, where he headed the Chennai bureau. He was part of the team led by Editor Vinod Mehta that launched Outlook magazine and headed its current affairs section till 2012. Under his watch, Outlook broke several stories that attracted national attention and questioned the government of the day. He has written two books—'Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter’s Diary,’ and a novel, ‘Junkland Journeys’.