On 24 September, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar "deshdrohis" (traitors) and demanded Kumar's immediate resignation. He spoke at a press conference at Indira Bhawan in New Delhi. The trigger was an Indian Express report revealing that two of the three election commissioners had formally objected, on record, to decisions taken during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
Gandhi suggested Kumar should "turn approver" and described that as an act of nationalism. "What the CEC has done is an act against the Indian nation," he said, while asserting that Modi and Shah would be investigated. He also repeated his demand that the CEC resign. The broader framing, which Gandhi has pressed in recent weeks as "vote chori", links alleged electoral roll manipulation to a claim that laws passed by the current government are illegal, as India Today reported.
"This is an attack on the Constitution and the legal structure of the country. You were supposed to ensure that the vote was protected. We have enough information to prove this with certainty. There are going to be consequences to this. We are not going to let democracy be destroyed and sit silent. Those responsible will be punished."
The disclosure inside the commission
Election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi have objected formally at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders issued in the national rollout of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), according to the Indian Express report cited by LiveMint. On one day alone, the report says, the objections came four times. The SIR is the Election Commission's intensive revision of electoral rolls; the national rollout has been under the supervision of all three commissioners. The disclosure triggered a political row, with Congress maintaining that Kumar has no right to stay in office and must resign.
Election Commission and BJP push back
The Election Commission defended its decision-making process. In response to the Indian Express report, the commission said differing views and observations within an institution are normal and part of deliberation. It has not confirmed the 14-time figure, but it has reiterated that all decisions of the full commission are taken collectively. This matches the commission's earlier clarification after similar reports of internal disagreement.
The BJP rejected Gandhi's charge. Party leaders, according to NDTV, described the attack as an unfounded attempt to delegitimise the 2024 Lok Sabha mandate. The party framed the dissent notes as part of routine institutional deliberation rather than evidence of irregularity.
Where the real dispute lies
The sharpest question raised by the Indian Express report is not whether two election commissioners disagreed; it is why their disagreements remained private for ten months while a national revision of voter rolls proceeded. If two of three commissioners believed decisions were being taken "without their knowledge," as the report alleges, then the commission's public posture of unanimity becomes difficult to sustain. That is a procedural governance problem, not evidence that the 2024 verdict was stolen.
The remedy for that problem is embedded in the Constitution and election law. Election petitions can challenge specific inclusions or exclusions in the electoral rolls; the Supreme Court has supervisory jurisdiction over the Election Commission. The commission also has its own grievance redressal mechanism. None of these require a Chief Election Commissioner to become an approver. They require parties to file evidence, let courts test it, and let the record speak.
The cost of language
Words like "deshdrohi" and "traitor" carry legal meaning in India. They are not casual political abuse; they are accusations that, if made without proof, corrode public trust in the institutions a democratic country depends on. Oppositions have a duty to scrutinise the poll panel. They do not have a duty to convict it in a press conference. The line between the two is the difference between accountability and delegitimisation.
India administers the largest democratic exercise on the planet. The Election Commission's ability to run elections with credibility is a public good. Every time a political leader declares the process fraudulent without a court finding, the cost is borne not by the party in power but by the voter standing in line at the next polling booth, wondering whether the roll has her name and whether her vote will count.
A transparency fix
One concrete step would shift this fight from allegation to arithmetic. The Election Commission could release booth-level voter addition and deletion figures for the SIR in a machine-readable format, with unique serial numbers that allow comparison against the final roll. It could also publish the notes of dissent in redacted form, after removing personal data. Such publication would not settle every dispute; it would let independent researchers, civil society groups, and political parties test the claims. Right now, the public has only the Indian Express summary and a political counter-summary. Verification requires the underlying record.
For Indian readers, the takeaway is not about who wins this round of political messaging. It is about whether the institutions that verify elections remain strong enough to absorb harsh criticism and still function. The Election Commission's best response to a formal dissent note is to publish it, explain the decision taken, and show how the objection was resolved. The opposition's best response is to use that record in court, not to demand that a constitutional officer turn approver. The vote survives not when politicians declare it stolen but when citizens can verify it themselves.
