Paswan Urges CEC to Address Public Doubts as EC Rift and Poll-Rigging Claims Escalate
Chirag Paswan asks CEC Gyanesh Kumar to clarify his position amid reports of an internal rift in the Election Commission, as Rahul Gandhi claims elections are rigged.
Union minister and NDA ally Chirag Paswan has urged Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to publicly clarify his position, amid an unprecedented internal rift within the three-member Election Commission of India.
Speaking in Patna, Paswan said the responsibility for assuring citizens of a free and fair electoral process rests with the CEC. He said that if questions are being raised about an independent constitutional body, it is up to the CEC to present his stance clearly, adding that it would be problematic if people began to doubt the electoral process itself. Paswan said the Election Commission needs to present its position to the public, not to Rahul Gandhi.
He added that it did not matter what the Opposition said, but that it was necessary for the Election Commission to dispel all doubts from people's minds.
The internal rift came to light through an investigation based on internal notes and letters spanning October 2025 to August 2026. It found that the two other Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, formally recorded objections at least 14 times over ten months against major decisions pushed under CEC Gyanesh Kumar.
Separately, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday that all elections in the country were being rigged. He said India's elections were fundamentally broken and that the sacred belief in elections was dying, adding that if the BJP swept elections tomorrow, no one would believe it.
Referring to the investigation, Gandhi showed video clips of speeches by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in which they say the BJP will remain in power for a long time. He said that as someone from a political family, he believed no political leader could make such statements, pointing to anti-incumbency as a force in Indian politics that spares nobody. He cited Indira Gandhi's victory in the Bangladesh war and the anti-incumbency that followed within a year or two, and questioned why the same did not happen to Narendra Modi, Amit Shah or the BJP.
Gandhi also recalled how the Prime Minister and the Home Minister bypassed his opinion to elevate Gyanesh Kumar as the CEC. Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi were appointed under a 2023 Act by a selection panel comprising the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.