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Opposition demands CEC Gyanesh Kumar resign amid Form 6 safeguards row

Opposition leaders on Saturday sharpened their campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, demanding his resignation over alleged unilateral changes to online Form 6 and the legal shields around the Election Commission.

Priyanka Gandhi and the INDIA bloc demand

People assembled at a political gathering
Stock image (Pexels, royalty-free).

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, speaking in Malappuram, said the INDIA bloc was united in seeking Kumar’s exit. She also called for removal of legal safeguards she said the BJP government had built to protect Election Commissioners from accountability, arguing those protections blunt scrutiny “no matter what he does.”

The flashpoint is a July change to the online Form 6 used by first-time voters. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged the form now asks whether parents or grandparents figured in the previous Special Intensive Revision roll — a requirement he says was inserted without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and without Union government notification under the Representation of the People Act, 1950. He called Kumar’s continued tenure an “affront to the people of India.”

Supreme Court pleas and constitutional process

Ramesh urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has separately said Kumar should resign and “turn approver.” Lawyers have also moved the court seeking prosecution and restoration of the statutory Form 6 as prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules.

The Election Commission has argued that Form 6 itself was not amended as a statutory form and that SIR-related decisions were unanimous outcomes of the full Commission. Removing a sitting CEC, however, is not a simple political demand: it requires the special constitutional process set out in law, not an executive order.

With SIR deadlines still rolling and Gen Z enrolment in focus, the Form 6 row has become the opposition’s sharpest attack line on the credibility of India’s election machinery.

Sources: The Hindu; The New Indian Express

Related: EC orders ECINet software review; Manipur UNC blockade update.

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3 thoughts on “Opposition demands CEC Gyanesh Kumar resign amid Form 6 safeguards row”

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