Keralam Assembly passes resolution seeking removal of Chief Election Commissioner

What happened

The Keralam Legislative Assembly on Monday, October 12, passed a resolution seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan moved it. Mathrubhumi reports that the ruling Congress-led UDF and the opposition CPI(M)-led LDF both backed it, with amendments, and that three BJP members opposed it. Scroll reports that the BJP proposed amendments and the House rejected them. Neither report gives a vote count.

What the resolution says

According to Mathrubhumi, the resolution also asks for errors in the voter rolls to be corrected and for a change in how the Chief Election Commissioner is chosen, with the Chief Justice of India, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha on the selection panel. The House argued that leaving the Chief Justice off the current panel weakens the independence of appointments.

On the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the rolls, Scroll reports that the resolution urges the Union government and the Commission to fix defects and restore the voting rights of eligible electors. It cites complaints that eligible voters were removed without proper criteria or advance notice, and warns that technical defects could cost marginalized groups, minorities, migrant workers and young voters their vote. Mathrubhumi adds that the resolution refers to media reports that the powers of Electoral Registration Officers were curtailed by software and that Form 6 was amended in a way that conflicts with the 1960 registration rules.

Mathrubhumi quotes Satheesan as writing online that the integrity of the electoral process is non-negotiable.

The BJP's position

Mathrubhumi names V. Muraleedharan as one of the BJP members who proposed amendments. He sought to add that the Election Commission itself had called the Form 6 media report incorrect, and to condemn what he called attempts by vested interests to discredit the Commission as a constitutional body. The reports read do not say whether the remaining BJP members proposed other changes.

Background cited in the reports

Scroll places the resolution amid nationwide protests demanding Kumar's resignation over alleged irregularities in the SIR. It refers to a September 23 Indian Express investigation reporting that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected 14 times in 10 months to SIR-related decisions, some allegedly taken without their knowledge. Scroll says Kumar has not commented on that report, and that the Commission said the queries raised by its members were part of standard administrative practice.

Scroll also reports that on October 4 the Keralam government ordered a preliminary probe into corruption allegations from 2006 against Kumar, from his time as the state's Public Works Department secretary. The reports read do not include a response from Kumar to those allegations.

Mathrubhumi says the Assembly session runs through October 29.