Pressure mounts on India poll chief Gyanesh Kumar over voter list changes

NEW DELHI, Oct 10(Reuters) - India's "Cockroach" youth movement and opposition parties are pushing hard for election chief Gyanesh Kumar to resign over accusations of widespread manipulation of voter lists during an ‌exercise to verify one billion voters.

The calls come a month after US President Donald Trump praised ‌the former bureaucrat, who took over as India's chief election commissioner in February 2025, for insisting that voters prove their identity with photo ID, unlike ​in the US.

Criticism of Kumar, who has denied all accusations, soared last month after a report in the Indian Express newspaper.

The paper said his two deputies had raised at least 14 formal objections over 10 months to decisions regarding voter rolls, registration procedures and the poll body's digital systems.

Election Commission data shows that more than 130 million names, a ‌figure exceeding the population of Japan, have ⁠been struck off the voter list since the latest round of revisions began last year.

Nearly 650 million people of the 960 million registered voted in the last general election ⁠in 2024.

The opposition has long claimed that the government is trying to fix voter lists to its advantage and was quick to repeat the accusations after the Indian Express report.

Government ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party and the poll ​body have ​all denied the charges.

Kumar, 62, and the two other election ​commissioners have not commented, but the Election Commission ‌said, "Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution".

The youth-led Cockroach Janta Party has called a protest in New Delhi on Saturday to demand Kumar's resignation, and the main opposition alliance led by the Congress party has also staged protests this week calling for him to step down.

Kumar has defended the actions of the poll body and told a press conference last year: "For the Election Commission, there is neither an opposition ‌nor a ruling side; everyone is equal."

When Trump praised him, ​Kumar was riding high in sections of the Indian media last month. ​But since the Indian Express report, graffiti have ​appeared near his ancestral home in northern India calling him a traitor.

Kumar joined the ‌Indian Administrative Service in 1988 after completing his B.Tech ​in civil engineering from an ​elite government college in his northern home state of Uttar Pradesh.

He previously worked in the defence and home ministries, and retired in January 2024. Two months later he was appointed an

election commissioner, before eventually ​becoming the chief.

Kumar has had a ‌troubled relationship with opposition parties from the start of his tenure as chief. Opposition lawmakers presented a ​motion in parliament for his removal this year, but it was rejected.

(Reporting by Saurabh Sharma ​in New Delhi; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Clarence Fernandez)