NEW DELHI: India’s political opposition dema­nded the removal of the top election official on Wednesday after a newspaper investigation alle­g­ed that decisions behind a contentious voter-roll revision may have been taken illegally.

The Election Commis­sion of India (ECI) has been under scrutiny in rec­ent months over the nationwide revision that has struck millions of names from voter lists since last year.

The ruling party says the revision aims to strike off fraudulently registered voters, but the opposition argues it is politically motivated and also targeting legitimate ones.

The report by the Indian Express focused on internal divisions within the three-member ECI.

It said the body’s chief, Gyanesh Kumar, overruled objections from the other two members at least 14 times during the past 10 months, leading to the removals of some 130 million voters.

Such overrulings may be unlawful because the commission is supposed to work based on the consensus of at least two members, according to the report.

The Congress accused Kumar of acting unilaterally at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP.

“It was already known that things were not exactly well within the ECI,” Congress party spok­esman Pawan Khera said in a social media post.

“But just how messy, dysfunctional and, frankly, disturbing things had become is (now) laid bare.”

K. C. Venugopal, another sen­ior Congress party leader, demanded Kumar’s “immediate removal” and a Supreme Court-mon­itored investigation.

Arvind Kejriwal of the opp­o­sition Aam Aadmi Party accused Kumar of “vote-rigging”.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2026