Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged that elections in India are being rigged, extending his claim from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to several recent Assembly elections.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Gandhi demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and cited reported objections raised by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi over aspects of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
“Elections are being rigged, from Lok Sabha to state Assemblies,” Gandhi said. He alleged that the two Election Commissioners had raised questions about Kumar and claimed that the CEC was selected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
“Gyanesh Kumar needs to resign immediately,” Gandhi said, while adding that Kumar was “a very educated man” but needed to understand that his actions amounted, in Gandhi’s words, to an attack on the Constitution.
The Election Commission has maintained that differences of opinion and observations are a normal part of internal deliberations and that decisions relating to the SIR were taken unanimously.
Reported dissent inside the Election Commission
Gandhi's comments followed a report by The Indian Express that Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over the previous 10 months to decisions and orders related to the SIR that they said had been taken without their knowledge.
The report said the objections covered issues including changes to Form 6 for new voters, access to electoral-roll databases and the handling of voter additions and deletions. Sandhu and Joshi also raised concerns over what they described as the gradual centralisation of electoral-roll data and questioned whether statutory election officials retained proper access to the database.
One dispute concerned a change to Form 6, the application used by new voters. According to the report, the form was modified to include questions linked to the previous SIR, despite Joshi having earlier raised concerns that such a change required an amendment to the rules. Sandhu subsequently described the change as “unauthorised and illegal” and called for its removal.
The reported objections have emerged amid the nationwide expansion of the SIR. The Indian Express reported that the exercise, which began in Bihar in 2025, had by September 2026 affected draft electoral rolls across 30 states and Union territories, involving more than 13 crore names.
The Election Commission, however, has rejected the suggestion that internal differences indicate that its decisions lack institutional validity. It has said differing views are part of deliberations and that its orders have the necessary legal sanction.
The official ECI directory currently lists Gyanesh Kumar as Chief Election Commissioner, with Sandhu and Joshi serving as the two Election Commissioners.
Gandhi questions disappearance of anti-incumbency
Gandhi also questioned what he described as the apparent absence of anti-incumbency in recent elections.
“I come from a political family, I know how anti-incumbency works. It doesn’t spare any party,” he said, citing former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's experience after India's victory in the Bangladesh Liberation War.
“Indira Gandhiji won Bangladesh and was at the height of her popularity, but after two years, they had a massive defeat. It happens with everyone. But it doesn’t happen to BJP, Modi and Amit Shah,” he said.
Gandhi argued that recent election outcomes had raised questions about how anti-incumbency could apparently disappear.
“Anti-incumbency has disappeared now. Take any recent state election. We don’t understand how anti-incumbency disappears. We can understand the popularity of a leader, but how does anti-incumbency never come?” he said.
He then compared the situation with Saddam Hussein's regime, saying anti-incumbency did not exist there and making a similar allegation about the present situation in India.
‘Attack on the expression of every single person’
Gandhi said the issue was not limited to individual votes but concerned the wider electoral process.
“This is not just an attack on the vote, but it is an attack on the expression of every single person,” he said, describing the Election Commission as the protector of votes.
“If the vote is destroyed, the Constitution is not working, institutions are not working,” Gandhi said.
He also said Congress would not remain silent if it believed votes were being destroyed and praised Sandhu and Joshi for raising their concerns.
“We are not going to sit silent when our votes are destroyed. They all will be punished, if not today, but tomorrow. I respect the two Election Commissioners for coming out,” he said.
Gandhi further alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah would eventually face scrutiny over the matter.
“PM and HM both will be investigated for what they have done. They are on top of this conspiracy. This is an act against the state, against India’s people,” he alleged.
The latest controversy comes as opposition parties have stepped up criticism of the Election Commission following the reported internal objections. The Indian Express report said the two Election Commissioners had also raised questions about communications being issued in the name of the Commission without the requisite approval.
The dispute has therefore moved beyond the SIR exercise itself to questions about decision-making, access to electoral-roll systems and the manner in which the three-member constitutional body conducts its business. Under the 2023 law governing the Commission, matters are to be handled unanimously as far as possible, with majority decision-making applying where the Commissioners differ.