"No Dissent By Any Election Commissioner": Sources As Opposition Targets Gyanesh Kumar

New Delhi: Leaders of Opposition parties have launched a massive offensive against the Election Commission of India (ECI) after a report by the Indian Express newspaper said two election commissioners "objected on record" several decisions taken by the poll body allegedly without their knowledge.However, people with direct knowledge of the matter told NDTV no election commissioner gave any dissent. They had only made some observations which the poll body looked into, sources said.All decisions taken by the ECI have the signatures of the three officers - Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, people familiar with the matter said.The ECI rules have a provision of majority decision prevailing if two out of the three election commissioners agree on a matter, sources said.This issue has opened a new and much more volatile front in the long battle between the Opposition and the ruling BJP over the ECI's voter roll cleanup exercise, Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which the Opposition alleged was a sophisticated process to exclude voters for the BJP's gain.Shiv Sena (UT) leader Sanjay Raut, Congress's Manish Tewari, Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and a DMK spokesperson led the charge this morning after the report came out."On behalf of BJP, he is doing the biggest crime ever a chief election commissioner can do to democracy. The BJP has given him immunity, but he doesn't know his name would be written in bold, black letters. No free and fair election is possible as long as this man is sitting on this chair if the reported allegations are true," Raut told NDTV, referring to the chief election commissioner."The way the BJP won elections in Maharashtra, West Bengal and other states itself raises questions," he said.Manish Tewari in a post on X called for impeachment of the CEC. "This is perhaps a fit case for seriously considering an impeachment proceeding but more importantly the fundamental question is as to how will the credibility of the Election Commission be ever resurrected?" he wrote, sharing the report with the headline '14 Times in 10 Months, Two Election Commissioners Objected On Record To Poll Panel Steps'.Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav in a post on X took a swipe at the ECI, calling it a "puppet". "For some people to betray democracy by becoming puppets of those in power is a grave constitutional crime. This is nothing less than a conspiracy to wipe out democracy," he said.