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.
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.
Kumar is a 1988-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre. He later retired from the IAS in January 2024 and became Chief Election Commissioner in February 2025. 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 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.
Kumar suggested a different course, according to Thomson’s account. “I declined it promptly,” Thomson said. He was serving in the government when the conversation is said to have taken place. The newspaper said the objections concerned decisions and orders that the two commissioners said had been issued without their knowledge. Sandhu and Joshi also wrote to the Cabinet Secretary over concerns linked to the poll body’s digital systems, according to the investigation.
He proposed that Thomson contest the Lok Sabha election from Pathanamthitta in Kerala on a BJP ticket, become an MP and then a minister.
