Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke has launched a sharp attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar amid a controversy over alleged differences within the Election Commission regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Dipke, in a post on X on Wednesday, described Gyanesh Kumar as the “enemy of India” and alleged that the Chief Election Commissioner was “scripting elections”. His remarks came after a report claimed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections over certain decisions connected with the functioning of the poll panel and the SIR exercise.
In his post, Dipke also referred to an alleged deletion of more than 12 crore names from electoral rolls and linked the figure to the size of the electorate during the 2024 Lok Sabha election. However, these figures and the conclusions drawn from them were presented as allegations in his post and are not independently established by the Election Commission in the material cited.
The Election Commission has meanwhile rejected the suggestion that there was an internal disagreement over decisions taken by the poll body. According to EC sources, all decisions, including those related to SIR, were taken with the approval of all three commissioners.
The controversy follows a report alleging that the two Election Commissioners had recorded multiple objections over a period of several months. The reported issues included changes to Form 6, the centralisation of electoral-roll database controls, voter deletion appeals in West Bengal and difficulties in adding eligible voters to electoral rolls in Goa.
Form 6 is used by citizens to apply for inclusion in the electoral roll. The reported dispute over the form centred on changes that introduced questions linked to previous SIR electoral rolls.
The reported concerns over electoral databases also focused on who should have the authority to modify voter records and whether stronger safeguards were required for such changes.
The issue has attracted political reactions because SIR directly affects the preparation and revision of electoral rolls. Questions surrounding voter inclusion, deletion and verification have become particularly significant in states where electoral-roll revision is underway.
While Opposition voices and political groups have raised questions over the process, the Election Commission has maintained that its decisions were collectively approved. The contrasting claims have placed renewed focus on the functioning of the three-member poll panel and the procedures being followed during the ongoing electoral-roll revision exercise.
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