New Delhi: Exactly a month after the Indian Express first reported that two out of the three Election Commissioners had objected 14 times in 10 months to the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar is yet to break his silence on serious questions over his role and irregularities in how work was conducted within the commission.

Kumar, facing growing calls for his resignation, with street protests from the opposition and student groups, has not been seen in public since, despite his otherwise larger-than-life presence ever since he took the CEC’s job. Kumar previously presided over a contentious press conferences where he aggressively sought affidavits from opposition leaders after they alleged there had been vote theft and questioned the SIR process.

Yet Kumar has not addressed the media or the allegations made by his two colleagues, Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu. Instead, the Election Commission has communicated only through press notes over the last month, through which it has announced a slew of reversals in how it has been conducting the SIR – including changes to how Form 6 is to be used, on the inclusion of new voters, machine-readable PDFs of electoral rolls, special drives to include left-out voters and hearings for the SIR-affected.

Also read: How EC Has Quietly Changed Form 6 During SIR, Evading Parliament

These series of measures announced by the commission has raised more questions about whether the SIR exercise is, in effect, being withdrawn under public scrutiny and uproar – without actually admitting fault and calling for a proper scrutiny.

Kumar’s absence from public eye stark due to otherwise prominent presence

Kumar’s absence from the public eye in the last month becomes clear upon looking at the X (formerly Twitter) page of the Election Commission. Prior to the Indian Express report published on September 23, Kumar’s photographs appeared routinely as he met foreign delegates and addressed Election Commission events in various cities.

Just a day before the report,  multiple photos of Kumar were posted with the Ambassador of........

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