Ex-Kerala chief secretary says Gyanesh Kumar offered him BJP ticket in 2019, Rahul Gandhi reacts

Former top Kerala official Jiji Thomson claimed that Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar once asked him to join the BJP and run in the 2019 elections. 

Former Kerala chief secretary Jiji Thomson has claimed that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar suggested he contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election on a BJP ticket when the two travelled together to Delhi in 2016. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seized on Thomson's account to attack Kumar, linking the claim to the wider political fight over the Election Commission.

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What Jiji Thomson said about Gyanesh Kumar

Thomson said Kumar, whom he described as a friend, spoke to him about his plans after retirement during the flight. Thomson told him that he wanted to work on a project for children.

According to Thomson's account, Kumar suggested a different course. He proposed that Thomson contest the Lok Sabha election from Pathanamthitta in Kerala on a BJP ticket, become an MP and then a minister.

"I declined it promptly," Thomson said.

Kumar is a 1988-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre. He was serving in the government when the conversation is said to have taken place. He later retired from the IAS in January 2024 and became Chief Election Commissioner in February 2025.

Rahul Gandhi attacks CEC over Thomson's claim

Rahul Gandhi used Thomson's account to accuse Kumar of working to find candidates for the BJP while he was a serving civil servant. Gandhi then tied the episode to his allegations about the conduct of elections under the current Election Commission.

"First, Gyanesh Kumar, then a serving IAS officer, was used to recruit for the BJP. Then Modi and Shah made him the umpire and put him in charge of match-fixing India's elections," the Leader of the Opposition wrote on X.

The Kerala Congress also responded to Thomson's account, asking who had authorised Kumar to propose a BJP candidature and why a serving IAS officer was discussing such an offer.

Claim lands during Election Commission row over SIR

The exchange comes days after an Indian Express investigation reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had put objections on record at least 14 times over 10 months. The newspaper said the objections concerned decisions and orders that the two commissioners said had been issued without their knowledge.

The issues reported by the newspaper covered voter enrolment and deletion, access to electoral-roll data and the declaration attached to Form 6 during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Sandhu and Joshi also wrote to the Cabinet Secretary over concerns linked to the poll body's digital systems, according to the investigation.

Election Commission says SIR decisions were unanimous

The Election Commission has rejected the suggestion that the reported internal objections meant its final SIR decisions lacked the approval of all three commissioners. It said differences during deliberations were part of the decision-making process and that the final decisions were unanimous.

The EC has also said Form 6 itself was not changed. According to the poll body, the requirement concerning a voter's parents or grandparents was placed in a separate declaration, Annexure D, filed alongside the existing form under SIR instructions. EC sources said the three commissioners had unanimously approved the relevant SIR orders.

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