Election Commission rift: two commissioners objected 14 times in 10 months, says Raj Thackeray

An internal rift within the Election Commission of India has come out into the open. Reports of tension between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the other two commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, are under discussion. It is being said that over the last 10 months, on the issue of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the two commissioners raised objections to several of Gyanesh Kumar's decisions a total of 14 times. Despite this, Gyanesh Kumar reportedly took no positive step on these objections, and the dispute between the three has now become public.

It is being said that during the new voter registration programme, Sandhu and Joshi were not informed about several decisions at all. This is said to be the reason the two commissioners raised questions over a number of decisions. It is also said that they had directly complained about this to the Cabinet Secretary. However, the Election Commission has denied all these allegations. Meanwhile, the opposition, including Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, has turned aggressive on the issue.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray also targeted the Election Commission in a post on social media. In his post on X (Twitter), Raj Thackeray wrote that this news had created a stir in the country. He said that at the end of 2025, before the municipal corporation elections, when he and opposition leaders in Maharashtra used to meet the state's chief electoral officer and his colleagues, he had already sensed that they had no real authority at all. Raj Thackeray said that he and his party had said this publicly several times, whether one calls it suspicion or an allegation, and that this news would now bear out the truth of what they had been saying.

Raj Thackeray further wrote that leaving aside the state election commission, where two commissioners of the central Election Commission itself are being sidelined, kept in the dark or have their views given no weight while decisions are enforced, one thing is clear: the autonomy of the Election Commission is now confined to the books. He said that if the definition of autonomy is to remain subordinate to the Bharatiya Janata Party, only then is it autonomous, otherwise not. Raj Thackeray said the objections raised by commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi are serious, and it is not possible for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to deny them, so it is enough to ask who is really pulling the strings behind his conduct.

Raj Thackeray also wrote that he was deliberately sharing the link to this news and that every Indian citizen should take the time to read it. He said people vote and want change, but the answer to why that change never comes will be found in this news.

According to Raj Thackeray, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi placed objections on record about the Election Commission's functioning 14 times in the last 10 months, yet the Commission went ahead and did what it wanted to do anyway. He said the Election Commission currently has three commissioners in all, one Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, and two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. Two of the three have recorded objections, which creates the impression that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar was taking decisions arbitrarily. But Raj Thackeray said that in reality, these decisions were being got done through him. He also said that Gyanesh Kumar was appointed in February 2025, meaning that as soon as he took charge he began pleasing his boss.

The objections placed on record by the other two commissioners state in writing that certain orders related to voter registration, deletion of names and the electoral roll software were issued without the Commission's approval. In Form 6 (SIR), applicants were asked whether their name or their family's name had featured in the previous SIR, while the two commissioners maintained that the Commission does not have the authority to ask this and that it would require a change in the law. The power of local electoral registration officers to make or not make changes to the rolls was almost eliminated, and they were left with almost no authority in the software. In Goa, local officials had examined documents and found 97 people eligible, but because the software did not allow their names to be re-added to the final list in time, their names could not be included.