EC denies SIR dissent report; Oppn calls for CEC’s removal, arrest, fresh polls

Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had registered their objections at least 14 times over the last 10 months, including four times in a single day, regarding key decisions related to the Election Commission (EC)’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has seen the deletion of over 13 crore voters across the country since it took off last year, says an investigative report by the Indian Express.

The expose has sparked a furore in political circles, with Opposition parties alleging an “arbitrary” functioning of the EC and demanding the Supreme Court to take note of the allegations. They demanded scrapping of the SIR exercise and mounted a fierce attack on Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that he was running the poll panel as a “one-man autocracy” and demanding his impeachment and arrest.

The EC in a prompt clarification, has said that even though the two commissioners had flagged decisions related to deletion of voter names in various states, all final decisions of the commission have been unanimous and taken with the approval of both the Election Commissioners and the CEC.

ECs decry “unauthorised” decisions

According to the IE report the objections by the two Election Commissioners pertained to new voter registration, deletion and restoration of voters in the rolls, filing of appeals against orders restoring voters in the SIR exercise, and the custody and security of the entire electoral roll itself.

In one of the objections, the IE report says, Election Commissioner Sandhu complained that the commission acted against his and Joshi’s advice in an “unauthorised and illegal” manner.

The two commissioners also recently wrote separate letters to the Cabinet Secretary complaining about changes in work allocation which they alleged removed a “layer of oversight of the IT backbone for the electoral rolls”. They asserted in their letters that these changes have been implemented without their knowledge and that they had struck them down, the IE report said.

Contentious Form-6 question

The SIR exercise which began in June 2025 in Bihar, as a routine clean-up of voter rolls, ended up deleting names of over 13 crore voters with Bihar and Maharashtra witnessing maximum deletions.

Form-6, which citizens are required to fill to be listed as voters under the SIR, popped up a new question in July this year – it asked if the new voter or their parents/grandparents “exist” in the “electoral roll of last SIR.” Applicants who didn’t know the answer couldn’t finish filling up the form without answering the question.

The IE report says that the question was included in Form-6 even though Joshi in May had warned that a file in the form could not be changed arbitrarily without the government amending the rules. Sandhu had seconded him.

Sandhu in August had called this change “unauthorised and illegal” and recommended its immediate removal.

Who asked to file appeals seeking voter deletions?

The SIR was conducted in West Bengal in the run up to the Assembly polls that saw the BJP wrest power from the TMC and secure a historic win. The exercise saw deletion of the names of 91 lakh voters from electoral rolls in the state. The EC last week told the Supreme Court that 38 lakh appeals were pending before the tribunals of which 22.21 lakh were filed by deleted voters.

However, the other 16.10 lakh appeals were filed seeking deletion of names of voters who were included by judicial officers.

Sandhu in August had flagged the latter type of appeals, asking commission officials who authorised them to file these appeals on behalf of the EC, the IE report says.

He mentioned in the letter that neither he nor Joshi nor the current Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal had been informed about the basis or process of filing the appeals.

‘Centralisation’ of electoral roll database

In the 10-month period, both the election commissioners have repeatedly flagged the inability of the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) – statutory authorities on the ground, responsible for preparation and control of a constituency’s voters’ list – to access the software ERONet and its succesor ECINet where the list is uploaded and maintained whether their access to the list has been restricted, the IE report said.

According to the report, Joshi in May this year had alleged the “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database” while proposing an audit to certify that “no one, except the concerned statutory authorities, had credentials to make any change in the (voter) database.”

A similar allegation was made by Sandhu in August, where he claimed that state-level election officials were reporting that they “don’t have proper and complete access” to the ERONet portal.

Can CEC make unilateral decisions?

This bring us to the question – is the CEC powerful enough to make unilateral changes even if the two commissioners disagree?

The answer is no. Article 324, under which the commission has been constituted, gives equal powers to the CEC and the two commissioners. The CEC, at best, is the first among equals and does not have the power to decide alone.

Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, says that all business of the commission “shall, as far as possible, be transacted unanimously.” It says that if the commissioners differ in any way, the matter “shall be decided according to the opinion of the majority.”

All decisions unanimous: EC

Reacting to the IE report and the resultant criticisms against the EC, the commission has said that even though Sandhu and Joshi had flagged multiple issues, including deletion of names, in various states during the voter roll cleanup, the poll body was unanimous in its decisions related to SIR.

Responding to queries, EC officials on Wednesday (September 23) said law governing the functioning of the EC and a Supreme Court judgment underline that as much as possible, decisions should be taken unanimously and if need be, majority view should prevail.

Rahul Gandhi hits out at BJP, RSS, EC

Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi hit out at the BJP, RSS and EC over "vote chori" (vote theft) and said justice will be served. "Vote chori is a crime against the Indian people and a direct attack on our constitution. The BJP, RSS and EC who organised it have committed an act of treason. Justice will be served."

Congress MP and party's secretary in-charge for communications, Jairam Ramesh slammed the CEC and termed him "absolute disgrace". "The CEC has proved to be an absolute disgrace to the Constitutional post he holds. His integrity of purpose, impartiality of intent and independence of action have always been extremely dubious," he said.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that on April 24, 73 Opposition Rajya Sabha MPs had submitted a new Notice of Motion to the Secretary General to remove CEC Kumar.

“The Monsoon Session of Parliament has not yet been prorogued. Will the Hon’ble Rajya Sabha Chairman now decide on that pending Notice?” Kharge said, adding that the country will demand answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

TMC seeks arrest of CEC

The Trinamool Congress, which lost the West Bengal Assembly elections after lakhs of voters were dubiously left out of the electoral rolls thanks to the SIR exercise, has sought the immediate removal and arrest of CEC Gyanesh Kumar.

Party supremo Mamata Banerjee posted a video message on her Facebook page, saying, “Today, the entire country is in turmoil over Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and my first demand is that he should be arrested and criminal proceedings should be initiated against him. My party was the first to raise these issues, and even seven to eight months before the election, we had been saying that our right to vote was being forcibly taken away to make us lose,” she stated.

MP and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee wrote, “The CEC must be removed immediately and a court monitored investigation ordered. Disenfranchising lakhs of voters to allegedly benefit one political party strikes at the very foundation of our democracy. Those responsible must be held accountable.”

He continued, “After the West Bengal elections, all opposition parties of INDIA wrote to the CJI and SC judges raising serious concerns. Those allegations, however, were neither examined nor given the scrutiny they deserved. When grave questions affecting the democratic process are repeatedly raised and yet remain unheard, it inevitably raises questions about institutional impartiality. The Supreme Court cannot look away. The buck stops there. Will the CJI led Bench act?”

“Impeach CEC to save democracy,” TMC (Mamata faction) MP Derek O’Brien said.

Call for fresh polls

Mamata called for a re-election in West Bengal, which RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav also sought for Bihar, alleging that the assembly polls in both states were rigged.

“The BJP won the elections in Bihar, West Bengal and other states because of CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The EC has been completely exposed. Kumar is working on the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah… Fresh polls should be held in Bihar and West Bengal,” he told a press conference in Patna.

“Modi, Shah and Kumar are blatantly misusing constitutional bodies, which are acting like BJP cells,” the RJD national working president claimed.

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal also demanded that CEC Gyanesh Kumar be jailed and immediately removed from his post.

Thackeray also demanded that the last elections in Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu be nullified and repolls be held in these states using ballot papers. “Gyanesh Kumar should be immediately sacked and jailed,” the former Maharashtra chief minister said, thanking the ECs for “exposing” Kumar.

The AAP chief said, “…today, we demand that the entire SIR process be cancelled, that all changes made under SIR be cancelled, and that the voter list from three years ago be restored.” Kumar should be arrested and a case of sedition should be registered against him, he added.

'Unconstitutional governments'

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said in Lucknow that governments formed during a period when the EC was not functioning impartially were “unconstitutional”, and that the “interference” with the poll panel amounted to “trampling” democracy. “This means that the governments which have been formed during this period are unconstitutional governments,” Yadav said.

DMK chief and former Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin wrote a long post on X titled, “CEC Gyanesh Kumar Must Go: He Has No Right to Continue in Office!”

“The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, along with other Opposition parties, has consistently opposed the move to delete crores of voters from the electoral rolls in the name of the Special Intensive Revision (#SIR). Rushed through just months ahead of elections in State after State, the exercise was riddled with irregularities and sparked widespread unrest, particularly in West Bengal…

“The SIR exercise must be halted. The DMK demands a fair and thorough investigation into everything that has transpired within the Election Commission and that those responsible be held accountable.”

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the central government and Election Commission need to take “corrective” steps in order to prevent people from losing faith in the elections.

EC's credibility at state: CPM

The CPI(M), in a statement issued by its politburo, said the report raises serious questions about the functioning and institutional integrity of the poll panel. The party also accused the CEC of having falsely maintained that the process was transparent and decentralised. It alleged that the system had, over the past few months, become increasingly centralised, making it difficult to identify where key decisions were being taken.

“The credibility of the Election Commission as an unbiased institution is at stake,” the statement said, adding that the CPI(M) held Gyanesh Kumar accountable for what it described as a “compromised Election Commission”.

The party demanded that the SIR process be stopped immediately and called for steps to restore what it described as the integrity and democratic functioning of the ECI. It also renewed its demand for changes to the system for appointing Election Commissioners.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas has called for President Droupadi Murmu's intervention over the developments about SIR. "I have written to the Hon’ble President seeking urgent constitutional intervention on the disturbing developments concerning the Election Commission and the SIR," he posted on X.