New Delhi: The INDIA bloc will hold its "public impeachment" of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's official residence, 10 Rajaji Marg, at 3.30 pm on October 30, after its attempts to book the Ashok Hotel and Ramlila Maidan allegedly ran into denied permissions.
Announcing the venue on X, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said: "The CEC has demonstrably violated the letter and spirit of the Constitution. He has systematically subverted the very foundations of our electoral democracy. He has, to put it bluntly, lied to the Supreme Court." He added that Kumar had been "the willing executioner on behalf of the Diabolical Duo whose turn will come next".
Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal alleged that the government-run Ashok Hotel had initially allowed the event and then denied it after police intervention. He said the party had booked Ramlila Maidan from October 25 to November 3 and had decided to shift the event there, but police stopped workers who went to build the infrastructure. "This means it is not the Delhi Police's decision. It is the decision of PM (Narendra) Modi and (Home Minister) Amit Shah and they are protecting their pet Gyanesh Kumar," he alleged.
Twenty-one parties of the INDIA bloc had planned the event as a curtain-raiser to the November 1 rally at Ramlila Maidan on the "vote chori" charge, and both are part of a series of protests demanding Kumar's resignation over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and alleged electoral irregularities.
The BJP's allies pushed back. JD(U) national spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad told reporters that the move reflected the Congress's "frustration and panic": "This is an insult to Parliament and the highest judiciary of the country." Noting that the Congress has given a notice of impeachment to the Lok Sabha Speaker even as its petition on the functioning of the CEC and the Election Commission is pending in the Supreme Court, Prasad said: "Now, this attempt to exert psychological pressure from the streets reflects frustration and panic. The Congress appears to be crossing the thin line between dissent and anarchy."
On the ground in Delhi, the Chamber of Trade and Industry has written to Rahul Gandhi a second time in four days, seeking a 20-minute meeting on the November 1 rally, which it expects to draw 10 lakh people. CTI chairman Brijesh Goyal said representatives of 20 markets within a 1- to 5-km radius of Ramlila Maidan - including Chandni Chowk, Khari Baoli, Sadar Bazar, Karol Bagh, Paharganj and Lajpat Rai Market - fear disruption in the pre-Diwali trading week, and want the rally postponed till after the festival. "We don't want a fight; we want dialogue," he said.
The Constitution does not leave the Chief Election Commissioner's removal to a show of hands. Under Article 324(5), the CEC cannot be removed except in the like manner and on the like grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court - that is, for proved misbehaviour or incapacity, and through a process that runs in Parliament.
In practice that means a notice of motion, an address by both Houses carried by a special majority, and the grounds being established, with the Supreme Court as the forum for the inquiry. There is no separate statute setting out the procedure for a CEC the way the Judges (Inquiry) Act does for judges - which is precisely why the Congress has filed a notice with the Lok Sabha Speaker, and why the process has no shortcut.
A gathering at a party leader's residence, however it is labelled, has no constitutional or legal effect. It cannot remove the CEC, suspend him or stop him signing off on a roll. Its weight is political: it hardens the pre-rally campaign and puts the Speaker's office under pressure to act on the notice. The live legal forums remain Parliament and the Supreme Court, where a petition on the Election Commission's functioning is already pending.
(With inputs from PTI and media reports)