# The Catch Up: Election Commission SIR row, and more (25 September)

An episode of [3 Things](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1406730235), 25 Sep 2026, 4:40.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75369778/catch_up_2026_25th_september_v1.mp3

The headlines of the day by The Indian Express

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: This is the catch-up on three things by the Indian
[0:06] Speaker 1: Express and I'm Ichha Sharma. Today is the 25th of
[0:14] Speaker 1: September and here are this week's headlines. Now, 97 voters
[0:19] Speaker 1: may not matter in the world's largest democracy of over
[0:23] Speaker 1: 900 million voters. But the story from Goa has national significance.
[0:29] Speaker 1: On Wednesday, the Indian Express reported, that two election commissioners
[0:33] Speaker 1: in the three-member Election Commission of India objected on record
[0:36] Speaker 1: 14 times in 10 months to steps taken by the
[0:40] Speaker 1: ECI under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar from keeping them
[0:44] Speaker 1: in the dark to adding new voters and deleting names.
[0:48] Speaker 1: What the two election commissioners Sukbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek
[0:51] Speaker 1: Joshi primarily warned against, the centralisation of ECI net and
[0:57] Speaker 1: cutting out state ground-level officials, has played out in Goa
[1:01] Speaker 1: and its trail is recorded.
[1:03] Speaker 2: On 17 February, four days before Goa.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Was due to publish its final electoral roll under the
[1:09] Speaker 1: special intensive revision, the state's chief electoral officer wrote to
[1:13] Speaker 1: the ECI in Delhi.
[1:14] Speaker 2: This was his eighth time in seven days.
[1:17] Speaker 1: Attached was a list of 97 voters whom Goa's own
[1:22] Speaker 1: electoral registration officers had heard, examined and and found.
[1:26] Speaker 2: Eligible under a process laid down by the Supreme Court.
[1:34] Speaker 1: Meanwhile, addressing the media following the Indian Express investigation into
[1:38] Speaker 1: the election commission rift, Rahul Gandhi said, If the vote
[1:42] Speaker 1: has been destroyed, then our constitution.
[1:44] Speaker 2: Has been destroyed. It no longer has its power.
[1:47] Speaker 1: If our constitution is destroyed, our laws are illegal and
[1:51] Speaker 1: our institutions are attacked. He added, quote, Meanwhile, the opposition
[1:56] Speaker 1: will soon move a motion in both houses of parliament
[1:59] Speaker 1: to remove Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Congress sources told
[2:02] Speaker 1: the Indian Express. A Congress source said, The motion is
[2:22] Speaker 1: being drafted with legal experts and we'll soon submit notices
[2:27] Speaker 1: in both houses on behalf of joint opposition. In other
[2:34] Speaker 1: major news, a girl was allegedly harassed by a group
[2:38] Speaker 1: of youths. on a bypass road in Samastipur in broad daylight,
[2:42] Speaker 1: with a video perpetually showing her being pulled by her
[2:45] Speaker 1: hair and subjected to abusive remarks. The development comes days
[2:49] Speaker 1: after a video of two teenagers who were stopped, assaulted
[2:53] Speaker 1: and allegedly molested on the outskirts of Jammu drew outrage
[2:57] Speaker 1: and became a political flashpoint. The latest incident took place
[3:00] Speaker 1: a few kilometres from the Samastipur district headquarters. According to
[3:04] Speaker 1: police sources, the girl had stopped to take photographs while
[3:08] Speaker 1: travelling with a boy when three men surrounded her and
[3:11] Speaker 1: began harassing her. The video perpetually recorded at the spot
[3:15] Speaker 1: shows a youngster holding a woman's hand and pulling her
[3:18] Speaker 1: while another holds her by the hair and tries to
[3:21] Speaker 1: click a photo as the woman struggles to break free.
[3:24] Speaker 1: The men are also heard asking the woman her name
[3:27] Speaker 1: and are seen dragging her as she resists. In other news,
[3:34] Speaker 1: the Chhattisgarh High Court recently ruled that a woman calling
[3:38] Speaker 1: her husband black-complexioned or fatty-shaped is not grounds for granting divorce.
[3:44] Speaker 1: The court said that though the 28-year-old husband made several
[3:48] Speaker 1: allegations of cruelty against his 25-year-old wife, he failed to
[3:52] Speaker 1: prove the same. Justices Parth, Preetam Sahu and Sachin Singh
[3:56] Speaker 1: Rajput found that that the husband's family members had forcibly
[3:59] Speaker 1: sent the wife with her mother when the latter visited
[4:03] Speaker 1: her after a miscarriage. It further noted that the husband
[4:06] Speaker 1: had failed to prove the required intention on the wife's
[4:09] Speaker 1: part to desert him. The court was hearing an appeal
[4:12] Speaker 1: filed by a man challenging August 2024 order of the
[4:15] Speaker 1: family court, which rejected his divorce application and directed him
[4:19] Speaker 1: to return the gifts, or stridhan, given by his wife's
[4:22] Speaker 1: parents within one month.
[4:28] Speaker 2: And with that, this was all for this week. This
[4:30] Speaker 2: was the catch up on three things by the Indian Express.

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