A total of 193 Members of Parliament belonging to the Opposition INDIA alliance have signed two separate notices seeking the removal of Gyanesh Kumar from his position as Chief Election Commissioner. Among those who signed the notices, 130 MPs are from the Lok Sabha while 63 belong to the Rajya Sabha.
The notices are expected to be submitted in at least one House of Parliament on Friday, although it remains unclear whether the motion will be introduced first in the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha. Opposition leaders indicated that there was considerable enthusiasm among MPs to sign the proposal, with several lawmakers continuing to add their signatures even after the required threshold had already been met.
Under parliamentary rules, a minimum of 100 MPs are required to sign a notice seeking the removal of the Chief Election Commissioner in the Lok Sabha, while at least 50 MPs must support such a motion in the Rajya Sabha. If formally submitted, the move would mark the first time in India’s parliamentary history that a notice has been brought forward seeking the removal of a Chief Election Commissioner.
Sources said that the notice has been endorsed by members from nearly all parties within the INDIA bloc. MPs from the Aam Aadmi Party have also signed the notice even though the party is no longer officially part of the alliance.
According to reports, the notice outlines seven allegations against Kumar. These include claims of partisan and discriminatory conduct in office, deliberate obstruction of investigations into alleged electoral irregularities, and actions that the opposition describes as leading to mass disenfranchisement of voters.
Opposition parties have repeatedly accused the Chief Election Commissioner of favouring the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. These accusations intensified during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of voter lists, a process that critics claim is being conducted in a manner that benefits the party in power.
The issue has also generated political controversy in West Bengal. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who heads the All India Trinamool Congress, has alleged that the voter list revision process has resulted in the deletion of legitimate voters from electoral rolls.
The development signals an intensifying confrontation between the opposition alliance and the Election Commission as political tensions rise over electoral processes and institutional accountability.
