BJP National Spokesperson and MP Sambit Patra addressing the media on the dissent row of Election Commissioners at BJP Headquarters in New Delhi on September 23, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday (September 23, 2026) said communications between the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and two Election Commissioners, which the Opposition parties cited as evidence of internal dissent in the institution, instead demonstrated its democratic functioning.
Accusing the Congress and other Opposition parties of continually attempting to create distrust among voters in constitutional institutions after being “repeatedly rejected by the people in the democratic sphere”, BJP MP and spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged that their latest target was the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.
He accused the Congress of being associated with multiple controversies concerning the independence and impartiality of the ECI during its rule in the past.
At a press conference, referring to an ECI statement on Wednesday (September 23, 2026) in response to a news report claiming that two of the three Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, formally recorded objections at least 14 times over 10 months, Mr. Patra said it showed that the constitutional body ultimately took unanimous decisions following a democratic process of deliberation.
“If the three Election Commissioners do not have communication among themselves, there is no kind of comment, no consultation, and all of them keep saying ‘yes, yes’, then the Opposition parties would allege ‘dictatorship’. The official deliberations between the three are a sign of a functioning democracy,” said Mr. Patra. Regarding the Opposition’s charge against the SIR process, he said the Supreme Court had upheld its legal validity multiple times.
On the allegation of “vote theft” during the SIR process after the current CEC Gyanesh Kumar took over in February 2025, the BJP leader said that in the recently concluded West Bengal polls, the Trinamool Congress won 13 of the 20 Assembly seats where the highest numbers of electors had been deleted. The Congress won one and the BJP six seats.
He also referred to the distribution of election results in West Bengal constituencies where the number of deletions exceeded the eventual victory margin. Of the 49 constituencies, the BJP won 26, the TMC won 21, and the Congress won two.
Post-retirement careers
“…the birth of manipulation, the birth of scams, began with the Congress itself,” said Mr. Patra, citing the post-retirement careers, constitutional appointments, and honours of several former Election Commissioners.
He referred to K.V.K. Sundaram, Nagendra Singh and R.K. Trivedi, who received Padma honours, with Mr. Trivedi later serving as Governor; V.S. Ramadevi, who was subsequently appointed Governor; T.N. Seshan, who later contested on a Congress ticket; and M.S. Gill, who became a Congress Rajya Sabha member and Union Minister. He also mentioned J.M. Lyngdoh and N. Gopalaswami, besides Navin Chawla, who became the CEC in 2009 and oversaw the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
“In 2012, V.S. Sampath was appointed the CEC. Lal Krishna Advani ji strongly objected to this, stating that it was in some way unjust and that there should be a collegium through which the Chief Election Commissioner should be selected,” Mr. Patra said, adding that until 2023, the Prime Minister appointed Election Commissioners as per his own “discretion, wishes, and preferences”.
In March 2023, the Supreme Court prescribed, as an interim mechanism until Parliament enacted a law, that the President should appoint the CEC and Election Commissioners on the advice of a three-member committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India.
Published – September 23, 2026 09:40 pm IST
