Gyanesh Kumar

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Gyanesh Kumar
Kumar in 2025.
Chief Election Commissioner of India
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 February 2025
Appointed by	Droupadi Murmu
Preceded by	Rajiv Kumar
Election Commissioner of India
In office 14 March 2024 – 18 February 2025 Serving with Sukhbir Singh Sandhu
Chief Election Commissioner	Rajiv Kumar
Preceded by	Anup Chandra Pandey
Succeeded by	Vivek Joshi
Cooperation Secretary of India
In office 3 May 2022 – 31 January 2024
Minister	Amit Shah
Preceded by	Devendra Kumar Singh
Succeeded by	Ashish Kumar Bhutani
Parliamentary Affairs Secretary of India
In office 1 May 2021 – 2 May 2022
Minister	Prahlad Joshi
Preceded by	R. S. Shukla
Succeeded by	Gudey Srinivas
Personal details
Born	(1964-01-27) 27 January 1964 Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Alma mater	IIT Kanpur (BTech) Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (Business finance) Harvard University (Environmental economics)

Gyanesh Kumar (born 27 January 1964) is the current chief election commissioner of India, and the first to be appointed under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. He has previously served as an election commissioner and as an IAS officer.

Early life and education

Gyanesh Kumar was born on 27 January 1964 in Agra, Uttar Pradesh. He completed a BTech at IIT Kanpur. Following his graduating, Kumar pursued Business Finance at the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India, before studying Environmental Economics at Harvard University.

2025 Indian electoral controversy

Main article: 2025 Indian electoral controversy

In August 2025, Kumar became a focal point of the 2025 Indian electoral controversy, wherein Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Indian National Congress (often simply known as "the Congress"), alleged widespread electoral fraud in the 2024 Indian general election and the collusion of the ECI with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), leading to protests. Gandhi stated that votes had been "stolen" in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura Assembly constituency through five separate ways, those being 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 voters with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos, and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6, which is used for the registration of new voters. Kumar was widely criticised by opposition parties and leaders, of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) coalition of failing to adequately respond to the allegations and of mimicking BJP rhetoric. In reaction, Kumar criticised the opposition of "spreading misinformation".

During a parliamentary session on 18 August 2025, the INDIA bloc publicly acknowledged that it was considering a motion of impeachment against Kumar.

Career

Kumar is a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1988 Kerala batch. Kumar served as joint secretary in the department of defence production at the Ministry of Defence from 2007 to 2012. He served as secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the Ministry of Co-operation.

Kumar was involved in the drafting of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, which revoked the special autonomous status granted to Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. In January 2020, Kumar was assigned to the Ministry of Home Affairs, wherein he was involved in the establishment of the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra, the organisation overseeing the construction and management of the Ram Mandir at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid.

Chief Election Commissioner of India

On 19 February 2025, Kumar was appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner of India.

2026 Special Intensive Revision SIR Controversy

An investigative report published by The Indian Express on September 23 has reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally raised objections at least 14 times over a 10-month period to decisions and orders concerning electoral rolls. The report said the objections covered voter registration, deletion and restoration of names, changes to Form 6 and the handling of electoral-roll data.

The controversy has become a political flashpoint, with Congress and other Opposition parties demanding action against Gyanesh Kumar, while the central issue remains whether the reported internal objections amounted to substantive dissent over decisions of the Commission.

The investigation report said Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi had recorded objections on several matters linked to the management of electoral rolls. According to the report, the two commissioners objected at least 14 times in 10 months. Four of the objections were reportedly made on the same day.

The issues included the addition of new voters, deletion and restoration of names, appeals against electoral-roll decisions and the management and security of voter data. The report also said the commissioners raised concerns about the centralisation of access to electoral-roll databases.

One of the most prominent issues concerned Form 6, the application used by citizens seeking registration as voters. The report said a new question was added to the form on the ECI's ECINet portal, asking new applicants whether their own name or that of a parent or grandparent appeared in an electoral roll from the previous SIR exercise. The report quoted Sandhu as describing the change as "unauthorised and illegal" and calling for its removal.

The investigation also reported concerns about the centralisation of electoral-roll software and the handling of voter data. It said Sandhu and Joshi wrote separately to the Cabinet Secretary over changes in work allocation that they believed reduced a layer of oversight of the information-technology system supporting electoral rolls.