Kerala Probe against Gyanesh Is Like Chasing A Ghost, All Sound And Fury

The Chief Election Commissioner of India, Gyanesh Kumar, who has categorically taken over the role of Gen Z’s enemy number one from Dharmendra Pradhan, may or may not have bit the dust by the time this article gets printed. With the unprecedented suspension of trains coming into New Delhi alongside the shutting down of 45 metro stations, blocking of internet, and the huge deployment of police and central paramilitary forces on October 10, the Narendra Modi government has made it amply clear how critical it is for them to protect Gyanesh for his acts of omission and commission by wielding the special intensive revision (SIR) quite like an axe to hack over 13 crore voters out of the country’s existing electoral rolls.

The government will invariably claim its decision to play the caution card averted Jantar Mantar from turning into India’s Tiananmen Square. However, one cannot ignore Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who has been crying himself hoarse about Vote Chori for years. Lakhs of youth across the country now echo the same chant about elections getting stolen. With investigative newspaper reports having put the lens on CEC Gyanesh Kumar as the mastermind of the grand theft of democracy, it is only natural that the beneficiaries of Gyanesh Kumar’s ‘revisionist’ acumen would go all out to save his skin.

In the meantime, there is no absolving the dubious role played by successive UDF and LDF governments in Kerala vis-à-vis Gyanesh. They let him off the hook over 20 years ago. Subsequently, they never really bothered to pick up his trail. It was as if everyone knew where the evidence lay buried, but no one wanted to get their hands dirty. Gyanesh Kumar, during his stint as a Kerala cadre bureaucrat since 1988, had earned the ire of political leaders and fellow officers multiple times with his acts of omission and commission. Invariably, he had more powerful people providing him amnesty. In many cases, he openly took up cudgels for the rich and powerful. Such was the case when he was seen advocating the cause of the sand lobby at a time when illegal sand mining was a major socio-economic issue in Kerala, posing serious ecological questions.

Sure, what did catch the public imagination was Gyanesh’s dubious role as PWD secretary in blocking due payments to PATI-BEL, leading to the death by suicide of the project’s manager in charge, Lee See Been, representing a Malaysian company. A preliminary enquiry was initiated then by the state Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, but no tangible evidence could be found. Rumours were rife that Gyanesh was named in the suicide note, which also mentioned Rs 13 crore being withheld by the PWD in lieu of bribes to be paid. However, the Vigilance enquiry recorded no such thing. Yet, what the Indo-Malaysian firm rebuilt remains to date the best road stretch in Kerala—the 240 km MC Road between Thiruvanthapuram and Angamali.

Gyanesh was free to join the ministry of defence soon after AK Antony succeeded Pranab Mukherjee in October 2006. Thereafter, he never returned to his home cadre, Kerala. He continued to rise in the ranks, both under the Congress-led governments and then under the BJP-led ones, until he retired in January 2024 as cooperation secretary, reporting to Home Minister Amit Shah. In just over a month, he was made Election Commissioner and, in February 2025, the Chief Election Commissioner.

Now, what does the newly instituted Vigilance probe ordered by Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala aim to achieve? To put it succinctly, nothing substantial. Reason: There was no validated suicide note by Lee See Been available in 2006, naming Gyanesh Kumar as the person responsible for his death. There is no reason to believe such a note would now become available, one that would withstand forensic scrutiny.

On the flip side, the Kerala government has a track record of coming down heavily on erring bureaucrats. This normally results in suspensions, punishment transfers, and entry into their service records—the most glaring example being of former ADGP Tomin Thachankerry, who is currently incarcerated in Poojappura Central Prison, Thiruvanthapuram, serving a four-year sentence in a disproportionate assets case by the Kottayam Vigilance court.

Surely, Gyanesh Kumar getting away scot-free in the 2006 road project case still throws up questions about his political masters. The probability is that the lessons he learnt way back in Kerala have continued to serve him well. As is evident right now.

Another aspect that is pivotal in the Gyanesh Kumar imbroglio is the brazen manner in which political parties are wooing top bureaucrats and even high-ranking members of the judiciary to don their colours. The list is as long as it is alarming. Top judges include P Sathasivam, Ranjan Gogoi, S Abdul Nazeer, and M Fathma Beevi, while in the case of bureaucrats, it is relentless.

From KJ Alphons Kannamthanam, S Jaishankar and Gyanesh Kumar to Jacob Thomas, TP Senkumar and R Sreelekha, you notice two things—most have a Kerala connection, and, no surprise, they all have joined the BJP. Hence, former Kerala chief secretary Jiji Thomson going public with Gyanesh informally asking him to take that route is hardly an earthshaking disclosure. Such is the decay that infests our governance.

If the bold new youth of the country, who brook no fear of the ruling government and its institutions, do manage to claim their second wicket amid screaming headlines, all those who were radio silent all these years will bet that the fresh probe against Gyanesh Kumar will at least make the small print. Because that alone, they will hope, will lend a semblance of legitimacy to the newfound wannabe move by the Kerala government to join what can easily become a winning team hunting down a conspirator against the tenets of Indian democracy. Yet, if things do not quite pan out and Gyanesh Kumar remains untouchable, then the new Vigilance enquiry has no legitimate leg to stand on anyway. They truly believe it is a winning move.

The writer is an author and senior journalist.

Published on: Sunday, October 11, 2026, 09:20 PM IST