Amid Opposition’s Demand to Sack Gyanesh Kumar, BJP Says 'Deliberations' Within EC Sign of 'Pure Democracy'
New Delhi: Amid the grave revelations of an investigative report by The Indian Express, and the opposition parties' continuous demand for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar from his post, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national spokesperson Sambit Patra has denied the government's involvement, instead calling the allegations an attempt by the Congress to "discredit the institutions of India".
"Since Prime Minister Modi ji came to power in 2014, the opposition has been continuously crushed in every election. Due to not being chosen by the people in the democratic arena, the existence of these parties is now in jeopardy. Therefore, the opposition has been defaming our constitutional institutions. Especially when the Congress party saw that they could not win elections, they made attacking and discrediting our constitutional institutions their biggest weapon attacking and discrediting our constitutional institutions their biggest weapon," Patra claimed in a press conference on Wednesday (September 23).
Targeting the Congress further and alleging that they were spreading "lies" along with some alliance partners, Patra claimed that the idea of "vote chori" (stealing votes) and foul play is a "misconception".
"When was the current Chief Election Commissioner appointed? On February 19, 2025. How many elections were held before that, and what was the situation in the country? ...The repeated allegation (by opposition) that we (BJP) are winning elections by vote chori and that there is some foul play is a misconception, and this misconception and misleading narrative needs to be dispelled. It is necessary to counter the bundle the lies being spread by the Congress party and some of its alliance partners, right down to the village level. This is not about benefiting the Bharatiya Janata Party, but about ensuring that even the poorest mother in the country continues to have strong faith in the Constitution," he said, further claiming that the 2024 election results from across the country were proof that the election process has been conducted "very smoothly from 2014 onwards".
2014 से जब से प्रधानमंत्री मोदी जी सरकार में आए हैं, तब से विपक्ष लगातार हर चुनाव में धराशायी हुआ है।
लोकतांत्रिक मैदान में जनता द्वारा न चुने जाने के कारण इन पार्टियों का वजूद खतरे में आ गया है।
इसलिए विपक्ष ने हमारी संवैधानिक संस्थाओं को बदनाम किया हुआ है। विशेष रूप से… pic.twitter.com/gUUOcoACLK
— BJP (@BJP4India) September 23, 2026
Many opposition leaders have, since the publication of the Express report, criticised the actions of Gyanesh Kumar, and even asked the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter. Per the report, on various instances, election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi asked questions to the very institution they head, seemingly unaware about crucial information related to the Special Investigation Revision (SIR) process which has left millions of citizens out of the electoral roll.
The issues raised by them, as per the report, concerned several high-stakes matters, including the addition and deletion of voters, changes to Form 6, access to the electoral database, and the functioning of the commission’s own IT systems.
However, Patra claimed that whether the election commissioners simply agree to everything, or have "correspondence" and "deliberations", as reported by the media, the Congress calls it "dictatorship". He asserted that it was instead a sign of "pure democracy".
In its very first paragraph, the Election Commission had clearly written that after having all the official, democratic deliberation, the conduct of the SIR was unanimous. There were no differences, and they were all on the same page.
The Election Commission of India, nor any… pic.twitter.com/7hvH9N6xWi
— BJP (@BJP4India) September 23, 2026
"Look at the situation: if the three Election Commissioners do not communicate with each other, if there is no exchange of views or consultation, and they simply agree to everything, then the opposition parties claim it is a dictatorship. They say this government appointed these three commissioners; they just say yes. Now, there have been 14 instances of correspondence among the three of them, official deliberations, as far as we gather from the media. It is not as if the Bharatiya Janata Party goes and reads these letters; rather, reports in the media indicate that official deliberations took place among the three, which is a sign of a healthy democracy.
"I would say that today, all the opposition parties have fallen into a trap, the trap of claiming that the Election Commission and the government were acting dictatorially. On the contrary, I would say this is pure democracy. Deliberations are taking place, and the Election Commission has stated very clearly in the very first paragraph of its document that, following all official democratic deliberations, the final outcome, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), was achieved with unanimity. In other words, all three Commissioners were unanimous; there was no difference of opinion or dissent among them. They were all on the same page. In short, the situation today is that neither the Election Commission of India nor any constitutional body in India is under dictatorial rule; they are functioning democratically and, indeed, upholding the country's democracy. By operating democratically, these constitutional institutions are safeguarding democracy," the BJP spokesperson said.
On the questions raised regarding constitution of the selection committee to appoint the election commissioners, Patra alleged that since independence, election commissioners were appointed on the "whims and fancies" of the prime minister, which he claimed changed only in 2023, when a law was brought in.
"But today, for the first time, you have seen that from the time India became independent until 2023, when the Prime Minister directly appointed Election Commissioners according to his own whims and fancies, a committee has now been formed that also includes the Leader of the Opposition, so that his views can also be taken into account as far as the appointment of the Election Commissioner and other commissioners is concerned,” he said.
Notably, the Supreme Court’s judgment in Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India in March 2023 had laid down an interim mechanism under which appointments would be made by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. However, the law that the government enacted replaced he provision for the CJI, and instead said that the appointments would be made by the Prime Minister, a Union Cabinet minister nominated by the Prime Minister, and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha.
The government's move is currently being challenged in the Supreme Court, and has now been referred to a five-judge Constitution bench.
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