> Source: https://amayakavya.com/posts/post-002 # Largest Democracy, Conditions Apply Politics October 10, 2026 3 min read My take If the ruling party has to defend the referee, the referee is already in trouble. On Saturday the Delhi Police picked up three passengers the moment they landed from Mumbai.[1](#sn-1) Their crime was a plan. Abhijeet Dipke, who started the Cockroach Janta Party in May, wanted to stand at Jantar Mantar and ask the Chief Election Commissioner to resign. 1 Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, detained on arrival at the airport. [Onmanorama, 10 October 2026](https://www.onmanorama.com/news/india/2026/10/10/cjp-protest-jantar-mantar-election-commission-cec-delhi-police-live.html) Jantar Mantar exists for exactly that. It is where the Republic lets you shout. On Saturday it was shut. To keep a few hundred young protesters away, Delhi put out about 25,000 police and paramilitary personnel and detained some 500 people.[2](#sn-2) It locked 45 metro stations, cancelled 38 trains and switched off mobile internet for a day around Janpath.[3](#sn-3) It also shut the liquor shops. Dissent and whisky, banned on the same afternoon. Even the Supreme Court, not known for jokes, said a whole city can’t be closed down to manage one protest, and called the orders “overreaching”.[4](#sn-4) 2 Deployment, detentions and the liquor shop closures. [Onmanorama, 10 October 2026](https://www.onmanorama.com/news/india/2026/10/10/cjp-protest-jantar-mantar-election-commission-cec-delhi-police-live.html) 3 The internet order came from the Home Ministry and covered 4 km round the Janpath and Kartavya Path crossing. [The News Minute, 10 October 2026](https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/internet-suspended-metro-cancelled-despite-sc-saying-entire-city-should-not-be-shut-down) 4 Chief Justice Surya Kant with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana. [The News Minute, 10 October 2026](https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/internet-suspended-metro-cancelled-despite-sc-saying-entire-city-should-not-be-shut-down) So who is worth all that? Gyanesh Kumar, a retired IAS officer, has been Chief Election Commissioner since February 2025. On his watch the Special Intensive Revision has dropped more than 13 crore names from draft voter lists in 30 states and union territories.[5](#sn-5) The Commission says it is clearing out the dead and the duplicated. Thirteen crore is a lot of ghosts. 5 Reported by Ritika Chopra of The Indian Express. [RTV, 26 September 2026](https://english.rtvlive.com/13-crore-names-removed-from-draft-rolls-amid-election-commission-discord/) His two fellow commissioners are reported to have put objections on record at least 14 times in ten months. The Commission says every decision was unanimous.[6](#sn-6) One of those two statements is having a bad week. The Supreme Court has refused to suspend him, but it wants an explanation.[7](#sn-7) 6 Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, first reported by The Indian Express. [Outlook](https://www.outlookindia.com/national/sir-to-removal-bid-why-gyanesh-kumars-eci-tenure-has-faced-repeated-scrutiny) 7 [Khaleej Times, 5 October 2026](https://www.khaleejtimes.com/asia/india-supreme-court-refuses-pass-order-suspend-election-chief-gyanesh-kumar) Maybe he has done nothing wrong. That is for the court to say, not me. My question is simpler. Why does a civil servant need a political party to defend him? Because one has. When the opposition marched in September, the people who rushed to his side were not jurists or former election commissioners. They were BJP leaders. One MP said the Congress “has no issues”. Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister called the revision “transparent and impartial”. West Bengal’s BJP president said that “at the very least, Gyanesh Kumar deserves the Padma Bhushan.”[8](#sn-8) 8 Manoj Tigga, Pushkar Singh Dhami and Samik Bhattacharya. [The Week, 25 September 2026](https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2026/09/25/bjp-comes-out-in-defence-of-cec-gyanesh-kumar-says-opposition-is-targeting-election-process.amp.html) At the very least. Presumably the Bharat Ratna came up and he was too modest. Picture an umpire one team cheers by name and puts up for a national award. He may be the fairest umpire who ever lived. The other team will still never trust a decision of his again, and then he is no use to anyone. Counting votes is the easy bit. The Commission’s real job is getting the side that lost to believe the count. The rules make it worse. Since 2023 the panel that picks election commissioners is the Prime Minister, a minister he chooses, and the Leader of the Opposition.[9](#sn-9) Two votes out of three for the government, in choosing the referee for the government. Removing a Chief Election Commissioner takes the same process as removing a Supreme Court judge.[10](#sn-10) The opposition tried twice this year, in March and April. Both notices were thrown out.[11](#sn-11) 9 The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. 10 Constitution of India, Article 324(5). 11 12 March and 24 April 2026, rejected by the presiding officers. [Outlook](https://www.outlookindia.com/national/sir-to-removal-bid-why-gyanesh-kumars-eci-tenure-has-faced-repeated-scrutiny) Picked by the government, nearly impossible to remove, praised by the ruling party. You can see why people ask who he really works for. On paper, the answer is all of us. The other side has its share of nonsense. Raj Thackeray wants paper ballots back, which is nostalgia with an ink pad.[12](#sn-12) But the cockroaches have also asked for the 2023 law to be repealed, and on that point they have read the fine print. If the revision is clean, the Commission can end this in a week. Publish every deletion, booth by booth, with the reason, and let anyone check. An umpire sure of his decisions shows the replay. 12 Mumbai march of 4 October 2026. [Free Press Journal](https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/uddhav-raj-thackeray-lead-mega-mumbai-march-against-sir-demand-return-to-ballot-papers) We call India the world’s largest democracy so often that nobody checks the claim anymore. Largest, certainly. The numbers will always be there. What no order can produce is a loser who goes home sure he lost fairly. On Saturday the capital cut the internet, locked the metro and closed the bars so that nobody could ask whether the referee is neutral. Largest democracy, then. Conditions apply. ## Since I wrote this - October 10, 2026 Published. [← Back to Posts](/posts)