The opposition has filed a fresh notice in Rajya Sabha seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, with 73 MPs signing on, The Indian Express reported on Friday citing sources.
The renewed push comes barely weeks after the first such attempt was rejected without reason by both the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman.
The first set of notices, signed by 63 Rajya Sabha and 130 Lok Sabha MPs and filed on March 12, 2026, was rejected by Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on April 6 — with no specific reasons provided in the official communications.
In the earlier notices, the opposition had accused CEC Kumar of a "failure to maintain independence and constitutional fidelity" and of acting under the "thumb of the executive".
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The charges included a compromised and executive-influenced appointment, partisan functioning — including an alleged "graded response" doctrine targeting opposition leaders — obstruction of electoral fraud investigations, and erosion of transparency through refusal to share data and materials.
Both Birla and Radhakrishnan, in nearly identical responses, held that even if the allegations were assumed to be true, they did not meet the high constitutional threshold of "misbehaviour" required for removal.
They reasoned that appointment-related issues do not constitute misconduct, that differences in administrative decisions lack evidence of wilful abuse of authority, and that actions such as data-sharing or electoral roll revisions fall within the commission's constitutional mandate.
Undeterred, opposition leaders — drawing confidence from the recent defeat of The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 in Lok Sabha — had been aiming to gather at least 200 signatures on a fresh notice. "We want to make a statement. We first need to prove that the number last time was underestimated," a source told PTI.
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Procedurally, removal of the CEC follows the same process as impeachment of Supreme Court and High Court judges — requiring admission in both Houses, an investigation by a three-member committee, and a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
Whether this second attempt clears the admission threshold, now that both presiding officers have already set a bar, remains to be seen.
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