New Delhi, 6 November 2026
The Election Commission has just added another layer of watch over some of its own senior people. This is happening while the whole place is already under fire over those allegations of internal dissent.
On 4 November they put out a fresh work order. Seema Khanna, the Director General looking after IT, now has to send her files through Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Pawan Kumar Sharma. Everything related to IT systems and the public grievance cell goes through him first. They have also given Deputy Election Commissioner Prakash Rajpurohit a supporting role in the election planning side.
This is not some ordinary shuffling of desks. It comes three months after that July 28 order which had annoyed two of the Election Commissioners badly. That earlier order, signed by then Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Manish Garg, had shifted the IT and grievance work in a way that let Khanna report more directly. The very next day, SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi both wrote separate letters to Cabinet Secretary TV Somanathan. They objected to how the work was being handed out and the way the order was issued in the first place.
That July order never really took effect. By 30 July it was pulled back. They restored the old reporting line verbally — Khanna kept sending her papers through the deputy election commissioner as before. No proper written order was made at that time. Now this November order puts it all down on paper again, after some officers have moved out and new ones have come in.
Khanna has been in the middle of the talk about the digital voter list system being pulled more and more into the centre. There are claims that the software was tightened so that state-level officers found it harder to open and change the voting lists. That whole issue has been part of the larger complaints floating around for months.
The bigger picture is still that September story. An investigation said Sandhu and Joshi had put formal objections on record at least fourteen times in about ten months. They raised points about the changes made to Form 6 for new voters, about who could access the electoral roll database, about those appeals filed in West Bengal against voters whose names courts had already restored, and several other things linked to the Special Intensive Revision of the rolls. In some cases they said things had gone out without them even knowing.
The Commission has kept saying there is no real rift. They call those internal notes and suggestions a normal part of how three people sitting together take decisions. They insist every final decision, including everything about the big revision exercise, was taken with all three agreeing. They feel the reports picked only a few notes and ignored the much larger number of things that went through smoothly.
Opposition parties jumped on the September reports and started calling for Gyanesh Kumar to step down or be removed. They said the Commission was running in a one-sided way and the whole process could not be trusted. The other side called it pure politics and pointed back to the Commission’s own statement that everything was decided together.
Some former commissioners have spoken. A few feel this kind of repeated formal objection is unusual. Others say differences are bound to come up and the only thing that matters is whether the final call is taken properly by all.
The new November order does not answer the earlier questions about policy or the software. It is simply an administrative step that clears up the reporting lines after the July mess and the staff changes that followed. Still, the timing is obvious. The Commission has more roll work coming and is already answering questions in court and outside about how decisions were taken during the revision.
For a body that lives or dies by the public’s belief that it is fair and works as a team, even these internal desk changes now get noticed. The Commission keeps saying its system has checks and that final orders carry the signature of all three. Those who are critical say the pile of objections shows something is not right in the way information and power move inside the building.
Right now the new supervision is in place. Khanna’s IT and grievance files go through the senior deputy. Rajpurohit has been given a hand in the planning work. The Commission has not come out with any long explanation linking this order to the earlier fight. They have just done the formal allocation.
Whether this stays a quiet office matter or turns into the next political and legal fight is something we will see in the next few weeks. For now the Election Commission is carrying on under the new arrangement and saying the place still works the way it is supposed to.
Sources: Hindustan Times report of 6 November 2026, News18 story on the 4 November order, the Indian Express investigation from September and the follow-up coverage, and the Election Commission’s own public statements.
@Rohit Manral
