Guwahati: Congress workers protested outside Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s residence in Agra on Monday, raising slogans against him and spray-painting messages on the main gate and a wall of the house.

A large number of Congress workers and members of affiliated organisations gathered outside Kumar’s residence in Vijay Nagar in the morning. They also put up stickers and pasted pamphlets outside the house.

The protesters spray-painted “Gyanesh Gaddar Gyanesh Chor” in Hindi on the gate and wall, calling the CEC a “traitor” and a “thief”. Videos and images of the protest and the defacement were were subsequently circulated on social media.

The Indian Youth Congress, in a post on X, said Congress workers in Agra had blackened the house of “Gaddar Gyanesh” and accused Kumar of colluding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to “loot elections”. The organisation said it would seek action against Kumar.

The protest comes amid an escalating confrontation between the Congress and the Election Commission over the functioning of the poll panel, particularly the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The Congress has been holding protests against the Election Commission in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and other parts of the country, alleging that the poll panel has acted in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Kumar, a 1988-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of the Kerala cadre, was appointed election commissioner on March 15, 2024, after retiring from service on January 31 that year. He assumed charge as the 26th Chief Election Commissioner on February 19, 2025.

The protests intensified after an investigation by The Indian Express which reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally raised objections on 14 occasions over a 10-month period regarding decisions of the poll panel. The report said the two commissioners had described specific changes in voter enrolment forms as “unauthorised/illegal”.

Opposition parties, subsequently stepped up criticism of the Election Commission and the BJP.

On Sunday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath criticised the Congress and its allies over their attacks on the Election Commission and the SIR. He accused them of weakening democratic institutions for political interests and called on them to apologise to the nation.

Adityanath also described recent statements by opposition parties on the revision of electoral rolls as “extremely irresponsible”.