‘Gyanesh Kumar is enemy of India’: CJP's Abhijeet Dipke on report over EC internal rift

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Wednesday called Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar “the enemy of India” as sharp reactions grew over a reporting that claimed two out of three Election Commissioners complained about being kept in the dark over certain aspects, including those of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.File image: Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) Founder Abhijeet Dipke addresses a press conference (ANI)Amid Opposition's reaction over the report, EC sources said on Wednesday that all decisions taken by the Election Commission (EC), including the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, had the approval of all three election commissioners.CJP's Abhijeet Dipke also criticised the poll body chief and alleged in a post on X that the CEC is “scripting elections”."Gyanesh Kumar is the enemy of India. More than 12 crore names have reportedly been deleted from electoral rolls. That is roughly 12.4% of the 97 crore registered electorate around the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The gap between the BJP-led NDA and the opposition was just 2%. Gyanesh Kumar isn’t conducting elections, he is scripting them," Dipke said on X on the report by the Indian Express.What is the ‘investigative’ report aboutThe crux of investigative report revolves around an internal rift within the poll body. The report claims two of the three Election Commissioners - Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi - formally objected on record at least 14 times in 10 months against decisions made by the poll panel.The objections coincide with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the electoral roll clean-up drive of the poll body, which struck over 13 crore names off draft voter rolls across 30 states and union territories (UTs).The report said the disagreements covered several issues, including a change to Form 6, under which new voters were required to declare whether they, their parents or grandparents appeared on the "last SIR" electoral roll. Sandhu and Joshi reportedly described the change as unauthorised and warned that it could amount to harassment of first-time voters.The SIR is an exercise to revise electoral rolls and identify and remove duplicate, deceased, ineligible and other names that do not meet the criteria for inclusion. The exercise began in Bihar in June last year and was subsequently extended to other states.The Opposition has criticised the process, alleging that it could be used as a voter-roll cleansing exercise that benefits the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP and the ECI have rejected such allegations.Other issues cited in the investigation included the centralisation of access to ERONet, the ECI's electoral roll management system. The two commissioners reportedly expressed concerns that the move could affect the integrity of electoral rolls. ERONet is used for managing electoral rolls and identifying duplicate entries, including those involving migrated electors.