New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday said any impeachment motion to remove Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar would follow due process, as the campaign against him widened beyond Parliament.
Farm outfits have written to President Droupadi Murmu demanding Kumar's resignation, adding an agrarian front to an opposition protest that had so far been led from the political stage. The opposition has been marching against Kumar and has met the President over the issue.
The trigger is the electoral roll revision, or SIR, which the opposition says has dropped or flagged genuine voters. Election officials say the exercise is aimed at cleaning the rolls of dead, shifted and duplicate entries.
Birla's remark points to the procedure rather than the politics. Under the law, a Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the manner and on the grounds that apply to a Supreme Court judge, a high bar that requires a parliamentary process.
The campaign has already spilled onto the street. The Cockroach Janata Party staged a protest seeking Kumar's resignation over SIR, and its leaders have been in custody in a separate case linked to a protest at Jantar Mantar.
The Election Commission has defended the revision, and the government has not signalled any move to change the top leadership of the poll body.
What the farm outfits' letter does is broaden the social base of the demand beyond parties. Whether it converts into a formal parliamentary move is a separate question, and Birla's emphasis on due process suggests the procedural route will be slow.