Gyanesh Kumar: Keralam reopens 2006 bribery probe into Chief Election Commissioner

What is the reopened bribery probe?

Keralam's government has ordered a fresh vigilance investigation into Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, reopening a 2006 bribery and corruption scandal that has lain dormant for nearly two decades.

The inquiry, directed by Keralam Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala on 4 October, targets Kumar’s tenure as secretary of the state’s Public Works Department (PWD). It resurrects a case involving a troubled World Bank-funded highway project and the suicide of a Malaysian civil engineer who allegedly accused PWD officials of soliciting bribes.

The decision to reopen the file comes at a moment of intense political pressure for Kumar in New Delhi. Opposition parties, led by the Congress and the INDIA bloc, are demanding his resignation as the head of the Election Commission over controversial changes to the country's voter lists.

What happened to the World Bank road project?

The original dispute dates back to 2002, when Keralam launched the ₹1,612 crore Kerala State Transport Project to modernise its primary roads. An Indo-Malaysian joint venture, PATI-BEL, won a ₹216 crore contract to upgrade the Main Central Road, a major highway linking Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam.

The project quickly bogged down in land acquisition delays and escalating costs. In October 2006, PATI-BEL requested a 30 per cent budget increase, which the state finance department rejected.

On 11 November 2006, Lee See Been, the Malaysian chief project manager for PATI-BEL, died by suicide in Kuala Lumpur. He left a note addressed to his wife and his company director, alleging that Keralam PWD officials had demanded bribes to clear ₹18 crore in outstanding bills. Reports at the time suggested the note explicitly named Gyanesh Kumar.

Following the engineer's death, the state government removed Kumar from his post and initiated a preliminary inquiry by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau. However, Kumar, a 1988-batch IAS officer, soon went on central deputation to New Delhi, and the investigation fizzled out without reaching the prosecution stage.

Why is the case active again?

The new probe follows a formal complaint by Congress state executive member Malayankeezhu Venugopal, who accused Kumar of bypassing established procedures to clear bills for favoured contractors. Venugopal alleged that the original 2006 inquiry had been compromised by external influence.

"I cannot become a mute spectator after receiving such a complaint," Chennithala said, adding that he ordered the inquiry after consulting Chief Minister VD Satheesan and obtaining legal advice.

The reopening of the case has drawn mixed political reactions in Keralam. TM Thomas Isaac, the CPI(M) leader who served as finance minister when the project stalled, welcomed the investigation, saying the country had a right to know the truth.

However, the BJP questioned the timing. BB Gopakumar, a BJP MLA, pointed out that both Congress-led and Left-led administrations had held power since 2006 without pushing the investigation forward.

Meanwhile, the political battle over Kumar’s role as Chief Election Commissioner has escalated in the national capital. Delhi Police temporarily detained Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during a march to the election office. The opposition is protesting against the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, which they argue has wrongly stripped millions of citizens of their voting rights.

The Election Commission has maintained that all its recent decisions, including those on the voter list revisions, were made unanimously by the full commission. Kumar has not publicly commented on the reopened Keralam inquiry.