Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar Faces Scrutiny Amid Poll Panel Rift

Investigation And Panel Rift

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is facing intense scrutiny following an investigation by The Indian Express into an unprecedented split within the Election Commission. The 62-year-old is the first CEC appointed under a new law where the government holds an advantage in the selection panel. His 19-month tenure has included a major political uproar over the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists across multiple states. Opposition parties, led by the Congress, have accused Kumar of favoring the ruling party, charges that the CEC has strongly rejected. The newspaper investigation revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected at least 14 times over a ten-month period to decisions made without their knowledge, ultimately prompting them to write to the Cabinet Secretary to flag their concerns.

Bureaucratic Background And Rise

A 1988-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre from IIT-Kanpur with a Harvard course in environmental economics, Kumar built a reputation for carrying out orders from above without seeking unnecessary attention. His career progression accelerated after May 2016 when he was appointed Joint Secretary in the Kashmir Division of the Union Home Ministry under then-minister Rajnath Singh during a spike in militancy. In 2019, under Home Minister Amit Shah, Kumar helped draft the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill that split the state into two Union Territories and removed Article 370. He also helped set up the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust for the Ram temple in Ayodhya and later served as Secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the Ministry of Cooperation. After retiring in January 2024, he was named an election commissioner on March 15, 2024, just before the Lok Sabha election schedule was announced.

Recent Actions And Confrontations

During his time leading the poll panel, Kumar oversaw assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Delhi. Early in his tenure, he mandated strict biometric attendance for Nirvachan Sadan staff and instituted a sharper social media response to critics. Amid ongoing allegations of vote tampering from the opposition, Kumar challenged Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to either prove his claims of vote chori or issue an apology to the nation. The CEC has not yet responded publicly to the latest reports detailing the internal friction with his fellow commissioners.