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Oppn parties plan to send letter against ECI toall SC judges
The Opposition parties will consider to circulate the letter they earlier wrote to the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant highlighting their grievances against the Election Commission of India (ECI) and other poll-related issues, among all Supreme Court judges, a leader familiar with the matter said on Thursday
The Opposition parties will consider to circulate the letter they earlier wrote to the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant highlighting their grievances against the Election Commission of India (ECI) and other poll-related issues, among all Supreme Court judges, a leader familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Twenty-three Opposition parties including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), along with independent lawmaker Kapil Sibal, had written to the CJI on June 30, accusing the poll body of acting in a “brazen” and “biased” manner during the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The parties further claimed the exercise was rushed, poorly implemented and disenfranchised lakhs of voters, putting the country’s democratic process “in jeopardy”.
Trinamool Congress’s (TMC’s) Rajya Sabha lawmaker Derek O’Brien told HT, “The Opposition parties are discussing a plan to circulate the letter to all SC judges. We didn’t receive any reply from the CJI so the letter would be circulated among a wider section of the judges.” When pointed out that the Opposition had already made the letter public, O’Brien said, “There is a big, political difference between making the letter public on social media and sending a copy of the letter to each SC judge.”
The apex court currently has 34 judges excluding CJI Surya Kant.
In the letter, the Opposition leaders said, “We all, representing like-minded political parties firmly opposed to the BJP, believe that the electoral process is being manipulated and outcomes in multiple instances do not reflect the will of the people.”
Questioning the appointment process of Election Commissioners, the Opposition alleged, “Since 2014, almost every appointment made by the government has been of persons closely associated with it and seen to be doing the bidding of the government, brazenly, to manipulate the outcome of election results.”
The participation of the DMK and AAP is significant as both parties have distanced themselves from the Congress-led INDIA bloc in recent months. Lok Sabha MP Hanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), however, did not sign the letter.
AAP exited the INDIA bloc in 2025 after contesting the Lok Sabha elections as part of the Opposition grouping. The DMK walked out of the bloc last month after the Congress decided to support C Joseph Vijay’s TVK government in Tamil Nadu.
