New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Two of the three members of the Election Commission of India (ECI) formally registered their objections on at least 14 occasions over a ten-month period regarding decisions on voter registration and the removal of names from electoral rolls; they also challenged the centralisation of the IT system managing voter data, the Indian Express reported this week.
In an in-depth investigation, the paper examined internal documents and communications from the body responsible for ensuring elections take place in the world's largest democracy.
Opposition leaders and the youth movement Cockroach Janta Party have accused the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of rigging elections at the state level to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
An investigation following earlier controversies
At the centre of the affair are Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, held responsible for a series of irregularities, and the other two commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, who raised concerns over the past year.
The entire issue follows well-known controversies surrounding the electoral roll revision process, known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Launched in Bihar in June 2025, the procedure was progressively extended to 30 Indian states and Union Territories.
According to the Indian Express, more than 130 million names (13 crore in the Indian numbering system), were excluded from the provisional lists compiled during the revision process.
The SIR is not, in itself, an illegitimate procedure. Last May, the Indian Supreme Court upheld the legal validity of the revision launched in Bihar, recognising the ECI’s authority to check the electoral rolls.
However, the justices also mandated procedural safeguards for the affected voters, including the right to have the cases of those excluded reviewed with the opportunity of filing an appeal.
It is precisely the manner in which this revision is being conducted that has caused a significant rift within the Commission.
The Indian Express has documented at least 14 instances where Sandhu and Joshi challenged decisions and directives that, according to them, were adopted without their knowledge or without the necessary approval of the full Commission, whose members have, since 2024, been selected by a committee comprising the prime minister, a minister nominated by him, and the leader of the opposition.
Although decisions need not always be unanimous, the Chief Election Commissioner is, specifically, "first among equals" rather than the sole ultimate decision-maker regarding the ECI’s actions. The 2023 law stipulates that, in the event of a disagreement, the majority view prevails.
The issues over which the three commissioners have clashed concern the way the electoral rolls operate and their revision: the registration of new voters, the deletion and subsequent reinstatement of names, appeals against decisions made during the SIR, and access to the central voter database.
Concerns regarding IT systems and the Goa case
Most concerns centred on ECINet, the new IT system launched in January to consolidate over 40 applications and portals used by the commission into a single infrastructure.
According to the investigation, the two commissioners expressed apprehension regarding control over the electoral roll database, and argued that the progressive centralisation of the system from New Delhi reduced the ability of state and constituency-level election offices to intervene directly in the event of irregularities.
The issue is not merely technical. In India, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who oversee individual constituencies, play a crucial role in verifying voter eligibility.
If a local official determines that a person should be included on the rolls, but the central IT system prevents them from actually recording that decision, a question arises as to who effectively holds the final say.
The Indian Express illustrated how, for instance, this problem played out in Goa. During the summary revision process, the IT system flagged certain voters for so-called "logical discrepancies", inconsistencies in the data when compared to previous electoral rolls.
Goa’s EROs reviewed the documentation for 97 individuals and, after hearing their cases, deemed them eligible for inclusion on the roll.
Four days before the final roll was published, Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer sent a request to the ECI headquarters, the eighth such request in seven days, asking that the system allow these names to be re-entered.
A deputy election commissioner had also written to the ECI’s IT head, requesting that the system not prevent the implementation of decisions made by EROs in accordance with Supreme Court directives.
However, when the final electoral roll was published on 21 February, the 97 names were missing. A verification by the Indian Express showed that, as of 20 September, they were still absent.
Form 6
Another controversy arose regarding Form 6, which individuals in India must fill out to apply for inclusion in the electoral roll for the first time.
Last July, a new question was introduced in the online version of Form 6: Applicants had to indicate whether their own name, or that of a parent or grandparent, appeared on the previous electoral rolls used as a reference for the revision process, the aim being to link new voters to existing rolls via their own or their family members' details.
While the question was not formally classified as mandatory, the Indian Express reported that the IT system would not allow the application to be completed without an answer.
Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi also intervened on this matter; according to documents reviewed by the newspaper, they objected to the fact that an additional condition for voter registration could be introduced simply by modifying a form and the associated software.
In their view, any change affecting voter registration requirements should have been grounded in specific provisions in the electoral law.
Revisions in West Bengal
Further objections centred on the handling of appeals in West Bengal. During the SIR process, the Supreme Court had tasked approximately 700 judicial officers with examining the cases of about six million voters flagged by the Commission for potential “logical discrepancies”.
The officers ordered the deletion of 2.7 million names and confirmed the inclusion of another 3.2 million. Subsequently, 3.8 million appeals were filed against these decisions: 2.2 million for voters who had been removed, seeking their reinstatement; and 1.6 million for voters whom the officers had decided to retain, seeking their removal instead.
It is precisely regarding this second category of appeals that Sukhbir Singh Sandhu sought clarification. According to documents reviewed by the Indian Express, the 1.6 million appeals appeared to have been filed on behalf of the Election Commission, yet it was unclear who had authorised them or who had physically submitted them.
Sandhu pointed out that neither he, nor the other commissioner (Vivek Joshi), nor the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal had been informed of the procedure.
The ECI’s lack of response
What made the situation even more unusual was the fact that, according to the investigation, the full Commission never met between May and August. The three commissioners held their first meeting following this hiatus on 9 September.
Shortly before this, Sandhu and Joshi had also written separately to the cabinet secretary, the highest-ranking official in the central bureaucracy, expressing concerns regarding changes to the allocation of responsibilities for the electoral roll IT system.
The ECI rejected the interpretation that the discrepancies documented by the Indian Express indicated a rift regarding final decisions.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the agency described the differing opinions and observations as a normal part of the internal deliberation process and maintained that all decisions made over the past year were unanimous.
However, it did not provide explanations for some of the points raised by the investigation: who authorised the modification of Form 6, who filed the appeals in West Bengal, and why the full commission did not meet between May and August.
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