ECI commissioners raise 14 objections in 10 months over SIR, Form 6
Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi have formally recorded at least 14 objections over the past 10 months against decisions taken under Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, according to an Indian Express investigation, pointing to an unprecedented rift inside the top ranks of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
According to the report, the two commissioners said several major decisions, including changes to voter registration forms and additions and deletions from electoral rolls, were carried out without their knowledge or approval, and described some of these moves as “unauthorised and illegal.”
The friction centres largely on the rollout of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which has affected roughly 13 crore voter names nationwide, as well as concerns over what the dissenting commissioners called the “gradual centralisation” of electoral roll software systems, including ECINet and ERONet.
A key flashpoint involves Form 6, the mandatory application used by new voters to register. Sandhu and Joshi reportedly pointed out that Form 6 is embedded in the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and cannot be altered without a formal government notification. Despite objections the two commissioners raised in May, an amended version of the form, asking applicants whether their parents or grandparents featured in past revision rolls, went live on the Commission’s digital portal, the Indian Express reported.
Sandhu subsequently wrote to senior officials seeking immediate withdrawal of the change, warning it risked disenfranchising first-time voters.
The report listed several other issues the two commissioners flagged:
- Centralised IT controls that curtailed the powers of local Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs)
- Form changes pushed online without Law Ministry approval or internal consensus among the three commissioners
- Software and roll-revision decisions executed without being placed before the full Commission.
- Technical glitches from centralised digital overrides, including the erroneous disenfranchisement of 97 eligible voters in Goa despite Supreme Court directions.
The dispute escalated after a work allocation order stripped away existing oversight layers governing the Commission’s IT division. Sandhu and Joshi separately wrote to Cabinet Secretary TV Somanathan, calling the order a violation of the law governing the ECI and seeking corrective action, a step the report described as without precedent in the Commission’s history.
The Election (Conduct of Elections) Rules require that Commission business be conducted with transparency and the agreement of all three members. The Indian Express said neither the Commission nor Sandhu and Joshi responded to its questions before publication.
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