Yusuf Pathan Denies Seeking Top Honour for Gyanesh Kumar
Remarks follow NCPI chief's letter praising Kumar's Bengal election role.
Yusuf Pathan on Thursday denied writing any letter seeking the nation’s highest civilian honour for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, saying he had not recommended such recognition for the poll official. The Trinamool Congress MP-turned-Nationalist Citizens Party of India leader said people in West Bengal and across the country were instead raising their voices over their right to vote.
Pathan’s remarks came after NCPI national president Jyoti Prokash Chatterjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi praising Kumar’s role in conducting the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. Chatterjee’s letter reportedly highlighted the Chief Election Commissioner’s handling of the electoral process and called attention to his role during the polls.
Rejecting the suggestion that he had sought the honour for Kumar, Pathan questioned why he would make such a recommendation. He said the focus should remain on the concerns being raised by voters rather than on any proposal to recognise the election official with the country’s highest civilian distinction.
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The development follows Pathan’s move from the Trinamool Congress to the Nationalist Citizens Party of India. His comments were made in response to the letter from Chatterjee, who had praised Kumar’s conduct of the West Bengal election process and addressed the recommendation to Prime Minister Modi.
Pathan also referred to the broader issue of voting rights in Bengal and elsewhere in the country. His remarks indicated that he did not associate himself with the reported recommendation and instead sought to highlight what he described as public concerns surrounding the right to vote.
The controversy centres on the distinction between Chatterjee’s letter and Pathan’s position. While the NCPI national president reportedly praised Gyanesh Kumar and wrote to the Prime Minister, Pathan has denied making any such recommendation himself.
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