Uddhav Thackeray seeks arrest of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, fresh polls

Mumbai: Shiv Sena-UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday demanded the immediate arrest of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and called for fresh Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

Addressing a press conference in Mumbai, Thackeray accused Kumar of acting as the “kingpin of a gang” that was destroying democracy and engineering splits in political parties at the behest of the Central government.

Thackeray’s remarks came after a media report highlighted differences within the three-member Election Commission of India (ECI). According to the report, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally complained to Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan, alleging that Kumar had taken unilateral decisions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) without consulting them or taking their dissent into account.

“The internal whistleblowing by Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu has exposed how arbitrary this administration was,” Thackeray said, praising the two commissioners for showing courage.

“The media and the public must break free from fear. When democracy is being openly murdered by a gang of political dacoits, the citizens and the press must stand up to safeguard the Constitution,” he said.

Thackeray said the revelations confirmed what the Opposition had been alleging for years about the alleged arbitrary functioning of the poll panel.

“Today, the unmasked face of Gyanesh Kumar stands exposed before the nation. He is the principal mastermind of the gang that breaks political parties, steals party names, and murders democracy. He must be thrown into prison immediately,” Thackeray asserted.

Referring to the reported differences within the ECI, the former Maharashtra Chief Minister said, “With two out of three Commissioners revolting against his (Gyanesh Kumar's) arbitrary style, the majority is now against the Chief Election Commissioner. In essence, Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi have ousted Gyanesh Kumar from the commission. I congratulate them for showing the courage to stand up.”

Questioning the integrity of recent electoral processes, Thackeray alleged widespread manipulation of voter lists in Maharashtra.

He claimed that more than 45 lakh names were arbitrarily added to the voter list during the Maharashtra Assembly elections, while 40 lakh names were subsequently questioned or flagged for removal during the SIR process.

Thackeray alleged that the ECI’s first targeted action against his party came when its original name and election symbol were frozen during a key bye-election and subsequently handed over to the rebel faction. He said similar tactics were later used against Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and were now being applied against the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.

“Even the name of BJP veteran L.K. Advani went missing from the voter list. Is this how they treat the man responsible for bringing them to power?” Thackeray asked.

He demanded that all elections overseen by the current ECI leadership, including the Maharashtra Assembly elections, be declared null and void and that fresh elections be held using physical ballot papers instead of EVMs.

Thackeray also sought an independent probe into whether the Election Commission was taking direct instructions from the Union Home Ministry.

“If the ECI is operating on instructions from the Home Ministry, the nation has a right to know if the Union Home Minister (Amit Shah) himself is directing these operations,” he said.

He warned that citizens would be forced to take to the streets in protest if democratic institutions continued to be compromised.

Calling on the Opposition to unite, Thackeray also urged any “patriotic members within the Bharatiya Janata Party” to support a return to paper ballots, which he said was necessary to safeguard Indian democracy.

The Election Commission, meanwhile, has said all decisions taken by the poll panel, including those relating to SIR, were approved unanimously by all three commissioners.

With IANS inputs