Who controls your right to vote? Four questions the ECI must answer

The Election Commission of India’s functioning is under public scrutiny like never before. The resentment around the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) that has left a large population of Indians – often the most marginalised – scrambling for documents is understandable. But the issues raised by the recent Indian Express investigation require answers that go beyond the immediate controversy surrounding the Chief Election Commissioner.

Who controls the electoral roll? Can a statutory form be altered without following the law? Does the technology used by the ECI enable officers to exercise their lawful powers, or restrict them? And who is accountable when eligible citizens find themselves excluded?

Public authorities sometimes take decisions that have unforeseen consequences. Demonetisation was one; conducting the SIR is another. Both had similar intentions – elimination of undesirable currency, and deleting allegedly ineligible electors.

Ever since it abruptly announced its decision to conduct an unprecedented country-wide SIR in June 2025, the ECI has faced public outcry accusing it of unjustifiably taking away citizens’ right to vote, the very right it was mandated to protect.

The investigative Indian Express report of September 23 brought these concerns into sharper focus. It revealed that questions about the SIR were being raised within the ECI itself.

The report reveals a palpable rift in the ECI’s working, citing 14 instances when two Election Commissioners (ECs) objected to certain decisions and orders. Under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, all decisions are taken unanimously or, in the absence of a consensus, by a majority.

The question, therefore, is how decisions and orders to which two Commissioners objected came to be issued or continued in operation. Were these matters placed before the full Commission? Were the objections considered and decisions recorded? Unless the full facts are disclosed by the ECI, the confusion over “dissent” will continue to distract us from the issues raised by the two ECs, which are inextricably connected with the SIR.

The ECI has since announced changes to its procedures and a review of ECINet. These are welcome steps. They do not, however, dispense with the need to explain what happened and how its consequences will be remedied.

The report raises four issues pertaining to Form 6, the EROs’ inability to access ECINet, oversight over the IT division of the ECI, and the filing of 16 lakh appeals before the Appellate Tribunals in West Bengal. Let us understand the issues one by one.

Form 6 is filled by electors when they seek enrolment for the first time, as per Rule 13 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Following the principle of subordinate legislation, amendments to the Rules require government approval and tabling in Parliament. The ECs objected to the changes in Form 6 as “illegal and unauthorized”, a valid objection. In fact, even if all three Commissioners were unanimous in changing the Form, the ECI wasn’t competent to amend it unilaterally.

In its press note of September 26, the ECI stated that the declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR had been upheld by the Supreme Court, while the forms prescribed under the Rules would be used during the non-SIR period. The Indian Express has now reported that the added declaration has been removed from the online Form 6 in states where SIR has concluded, but remains in states where it is ongoing.

This change does not settle the original question. Was the Supreme Court specifically apprised of the amendments and the provision in the Rules? What is the ECI’s intent in maintaining different requirements during SIR and the non-SIR period? This is quite apart from the fact that the information sought in the declaration has little to do with an elector’s eligibility and creates obstacles in enrolling first-time voters.

For a citizen seeking to enrol for the first time, this is a practical question: what information can lawfully be demanded before their name is added to the electoral roll?

The second issue pertains to ECINet, launched with fanfare in January this year to “enhance transparency, credibility and public trust”. Instead, what transpired in a few months was that the platform denied access to the very officer legally authorised to prepare or amend the electoral roll.

It is difficult to know whether this denial of access was by default or design. The ECs flagged the “gradual centralization of the electoral roll database” and warned against restricting the powers of the officers empowered by law to manage the electoral roll.

The Goa instance cited in the report is telling, as the ERO wrote eight emails within a week complaining in vain about the denial of access — an extraordinary arrangement by which ECINet created hurdles in the performance of a legally mandated function.

The ECI has now announced a committee to review whether ECINet complies with the Acts and Rules, and has said that further flexibility required by field officers will be made operational. The question is whether officers can, in practice, exercise the powers that the law gives them.

Earlier, in West Bengal, a few BLOs and EROs complained that notices were issued in a centralised fashion in their name without their knowledge. This overcentralisation, which the ECs red-flagged, has the dangerous potential. A review must establish who can authorise changes, who can execute them, and how responsibility for each action is recorded.

The third issue is of the ECs being kept in the dark about changes in the IT modules and the lack of oversight of the IT division within the ECI. On one EC’s direction, the Deputy Election Commissioner wrote to the Director General, IT, that the IT system must operate strictly in accordance with the law. An independent audit of the system and an internal audit mechanism were also suggested.

An order issued by the senior Deputy Election Commissioner sought to remove an established layer of oversight over the IT division. This provoked the two ECs to write to the Cabinet Secretary against the senior officer’s conduct. They set aside that order exercising their majority powers.

The ECI has since clarified that the redistribution order was not implemented after the two Commissioners’ intervention, and that oversight over the IT division was never actually withdrawn. It has also said that new IT initiatives will be discussed in the Committee of Officers before approval by the Commission.

These clarifications need to be considered. But that the two ECs were compelled to intervene and write to the Cabinet Secretary remains unprecedented and reveals a certain fissure within the ECI. The review now announced must explain how such an order came to be issued and what safeguards will prevent a recurrence.

The fourth issue is of over 16 lakh appeals filed before the Appellate Tribunals against names validly included during the SIR in West Bengal. One of the ECs expressed surprise regarding the basis and process of filing these appeals, as neither the two ECs nor the CEO of West Bengal were aware of them.

This is intriguing, and a damning indictment of the SIR if the ECI filed these appeals against the so-called “purification” that the SIR was meant to achieve. Already, after the judicial officers had restored 33 lakh electors out of the 60 lakh knocked out by the absurd “logical discrepancy” methodology, the appellate tribunal found 93 percent wrongful deletions in the appeals adjudicated.

The ECI needs to disclose who authorised these appeals, on what grounds, and through what process. An elector whose eligibility has survived scrutiny should be able to understand why that finding is being challenged.

This is a sad commentary on the SIR process, which has caused mass anxiety amid unfair disenfranchisement. That two of the three ECs were regularly pointing out discrepancies in the logic behind ECI’s decisions, and that some of these were termed “illegal”, gives citizens reason to question how their right to vote is being dealt with.

These four issues provide a concrete basis for public scrutiny: lawful enrolment, the statutory powers of field officers, accountable control over electoral technology, and transparency about appeals against the inclusion of voters.

The ECI’s recent announcements must be assessed against those questions. Have obstacles to enrolment actually been removed? Can field officers exercise their lawful powers? Will the findings of the ECINet review be made public? And will eligible electors affected by these decisions receive an effective remedy?

Public trust requires answers to these questions. The institution entrusted with protecting the right to vote must demonstrate that its procedures, its technology and its decisions serve that responsibility, and fix accountability for the alleged lapses.

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