New Delhi : The Opposition on Thursday launched a fresh round of attacks on the Election Commission after a report claimed 97 voters in Goa. The Congress alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had “hijacked the entire system” at the behest of the Prime Minister and was “carrying out anti-national acts”.
An Indian Express report alleged that 97 Goa voters who were found eligible for inclusion in the 2026 final electoral roll by local Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) were left out because the Election Commission’s centralised ECINet system, controlled by its IT division in Delhi, did not allow the EROs to reverse earlier deletion decisions. Despite the Goa Chief Electoral Officer, Sanjay Goel, sending eight emails in seven days seeking a rollback facility, and the Commission’s Deputy Election Commissioner directing the IT division to enable the correction, the facility was allegedly not provided before the final roll was published.
The development comes amid a massive row over another report that the two Election Commissioners had consistently raised objections to decisions taken under CEO Gyanesh Kumar, including those related to the SIR. Launching a direct attack at the Prime Minister over the matter, Congess alleged that “Narendra Modi’s darling Gyanesh Kumar is strangling democracy”. Jairam Ramesh pointed out that under the Representation of the People Act, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have statutory authority over electoral rolls.
“Each new piece of evidence further confirms what the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has been saying for almost two years, ever since the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly election results were out. The election process has been thoroughly compromised and vitiated. This is Gyanesh Kumar implementing the Method of Disenfranchising Indians (MODI),” Ramesh added. Calling the report an “extremely serious” one, senior Congress leader Shahi Tharoor alleged “it involves depriving Indian citizens of their constitutional rights”.
The Election Commission owes an apology to the affected citizens and indeed to the nation. Resignation is a minimal demand; rescinding this disastrous software and undoing the harm it has caused is now indispensable,” Tharoor wrote on X. The new report has emerged amid a wider political controversy over the functioning of the poll panel and reported differences among the three Election Commissioners over the handling of electoral rolls, voter deletions and the Commission’s centralised digital systems.
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