Guwahati: Opposition parties on Wednesday called for Parliament to initiate proceedings for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of a report detailing repeated objections by two Election Commissioners over decisions taken by the poll panel.

The demand follows an Indian Express report which said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally recorded objections at least 14 times over 10 months. According to the report, the two Commissioners questioned several decisions concerning electoral rolls and said some actions were taken without their knowledge.

The Election Commission of India (ECI), however, maintained that its decisions, including those relating to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, had been unanimous and approved by both Election Commissioners and the CEC.

According to the report, the two Commissioners had raised concerns over the centralisation of electoral rolls and access to the electoral database. In May, Joshi proposed an audit to establish that only the concerned statutory authorities had credentials to make changes to the voter database.

In August, Sandhu recorded that state-level election officials had reported inadequate and incomplete access to ERONet, the digital system used to maintain electoral rolls. He also questioned the authority of the Commission’s Director-General of IT, Seema Khanna, to restrict the statutory authorities’ access to the system.

The report also said the two Commissioners had objected to changes made to Form 6, which is used by new voters to register. The revised form asked applicants whether they or their parents or grandparents existed on the electoral roll of the last SIR.

Joshi had reportedly raised the issue in May, arguing that a statutory form could not be altered without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Sandhu subsequently described the change as unauthorised and illegal and sought its removal.

Sandhu also questioned the authorisation for the Commission in West Bengal to file appeals against voters whom judicial tribunals had already included in the electoral rolls. The report said 38 lakh such appeals were pending.

The two Commissioners also flagged a case in Goa involving 97 voters who had been found eligible by local Electoral Registration Officers following a Supreme Court-mandated hearing but were left out of the final roll because centrally controlled software lacked a mechanism to record the EROs’ decisions. The Chief Electoral Officer’s office had reportedly written eight times seeking a rollback option.

Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal said the report showed that CEC Gyanesh Kumar should no longer remain in office. He alleged that decisions affecting voters were being taken without due process and called for his immediate removal and a Supreme Court-monitored investigation.

Congress MP Manish Tewari said that if the reported objections were accurate and decisions had been taken without following the prescribed rules or without unanimity or a majority, the legality of such decisions would have to be examined.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said the reported differences indicated that the Election Commissioners were not able to perform their duties fully.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas called for Parliament to begin the process for the CEC’s removal and for the Supreme Court to examine the SIR exercise, citing reported objections by the two Election Commissioners.

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien said more than 60 Rajya Sabha MPs had, five months earlier, submitted a motion to the Rajya Sabha Chairman seeking the removal of CEC Kumar.

Meanwhile, the ECI maintained that its decisions, including those concerning the SIR, had been taken unanimously with the approval of the CEC and both Election Commissioners.