‘Just Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation won’t be enough, he should face criminal action’

It is unprecedented for an Election Commissioner to write to the Cabinet Secretary seeking intervention in a matter that is essentially an internal matter. The commissioners appear to have done this because they believed they had been bypassed and decision-making within the commission was not as smooth as the Election Commission of India’s press release implies.The nature of the objections raised by the commissioners matters. They concern addition or deletion of voters from electoral rolls, centralising control and changing statutory forms, like Form 6. These are not routine administrative questions about transfers or allocation of work. They go to the foundation of the electoral process: whether an individual is a voter.