ThePrintPod: The Gyanesh Kumar controversy & Modi govt: When things go wrong the crises keep coming

ThePrint

Vir Sanghvi examines the growing controversy surrounding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Indian government's refusal to remove him

Key takeaways

• Gyanesh Kumar is described as a 'menace to Indian democracy' due to allegations of manipulating election processes.
• The Modi government is intentionally avoiding sackings or rollbacks to prevent the perception of weakness seen during UPA2.

Main topics

• Gyanesh Kumar controversy
• Election Commission integrity

Notable quotes

The man is a menace to Indian democracy.

Conclusion

The episode concludes that the government's refusal to address the con

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:05) I've been writing about the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, for so long that my wife sometimes jokes, at least I hope she's joking, that I sound like a stuck record on the subject. I've been saying now for many months that the man is a menace to Indian democracy, that what he is doing will change the character of Indian elections, and perhaps it will end up rigging Indian elections. We've got to get rid of him. I mean, I've had people agreeing, mostly everybody in the opposition. Some people have been on the fence. But the most important consequence of the Indian Express revelations is that less and less people are on the fence. There's now a broad agreement. There's no point sitting on the fence. We've got to get rid of this guy. After all, it turns out that many of the things that we thought were unanimous decisions were opposed by his fellow election commissioners, that there was criticism from within, but that he would not bend. Okay, so now that we're all broadly agreed he's got to go, what will happen? There's a simple solution, which is if he claims he's innocent, and they all claim that. If he claims he's innocent, not guilty, that the charges are bogus, then what he needs to do is to issue a statement saying that these charges are bogus. I haven't done anything wrong. The Election Commission has performed brilliantly on my watch. I mean, if he's going to make that kind of statement, he can hype it up. And I've been a great election commissioner. But however, because I care about Indian elections and the office of election commissioner is so important, I don't want an ugly controversy to develop. So, voluntarily, in the larger interests of Indian elections and of morality in Indian public life, even though I'm completely innocent, I will step down. If he were to say that, it would solve everyone's problems. He would be able to say that he's innocent. He would argue no guilt was ever proven. You can disagree with the argument, but he would certainly argue it. The government would accept his resignation with regret. And then they'd sit tight. Obviously, there'd have to be a deal because he won't go voluntarily. Maybe they'll make him an ambassador to some not very consequential country so he can keep his azerth. Or maybe they'll even make him a governor. As you know, standards for that job are now abysmally low. But everything we know about Gyanesh tells us that he's an arrogant, blunt, stubborn, obstinate sort of guy. who is hostile, doesn't take criticism well. I mean, from what we've seen, he may actually be a very nice man with his family, but his