NEW DELHI — Escalating his offensive against the Election Commission of India (ECI), Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday demanded accountability over unauthorized changes made to Form 6—the primary application used for new voter enrollment—on the poll panel’s digital portal, ECINET.
Gandhi specifically questioned the instructions issued to IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which manages the core digital backend infrastructure for the election body, asking who authorized the inclusion of an unapproved declaration field into the online system.
Concerns Over Backend Integrity and External Pressure
Posting on X, the senior Congress leader alleged that the digital modifications bypassed statutory norms and questioned whether administrative pressure was placed on the technology vendor:
“The online Form 6 was changed illegally — as the EC’s own Commissioners have recorded. Who at the ECI ordered Tata Consultancy Services to make that change? Who at TCS signed off on it? And were they pressured into doing it?”
The controversy revolves around an extra declaration field appended to the online Form 6 during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The added entry required prospective voters to specify whether their name, or that of their parents or grandparents, was listed in historical electoral rolls from previous revision drives.
Internal Opposition Within the Poll Panel
The controversy came to light following reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally dissented against the digital alteration on procedural grounds.
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Jurisdictional Boundaries: The Commissioners contended that altering forms prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, requires formal legislative amendments by the Ministry of Law and Justice, placing such changes beyond the administrative discretion of the ECI or its vendor.
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Procedural Validity: The dissenting notes highlighted that digital application portals cannot introduce mandatory data fields that lack explicit statutory backing under electoral law.
ECI Defends Action, Rollback Executed in Non-SIR States
Refuting allegations of illegal modifications, the Election Commission maintained that the original statutory Form 6 remained untouched, explaining that an additional Annexure-D declaration was temporarily integrated to support the voter verification process.
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System Updates: Following the review, the ECI updated the ECINET portal on September 30, removing the additional declaration field in states where the SIR exercise has concluded.
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Active Status: The declaration remains operational in 13 states where voter revision operations are currently ongoing.
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Legal Antecedents: The poll body cited a May 27 Supreme Court ruling validating its authority to seek supplementary details during revision drives, adding that all official SIR guidelines had received the consensus of the full bench.
INDIA Alliance Plans Countrywide Protests
The dispute over voter registration procedures has prompted a unified response from the opposition INDIA bloc, which has scheduled a series of nationwide demonstrations:
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Nationwide Demonstrations: A district-level “Save Democracy March” will be conducted across the country from October 2 to October 8.
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March to EC Headquarters: Opposition lawmakers are scheduled to march to the Election Commission office in New Delhi on October 6.
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Delegation to Rashtrapati Bhavan: Alliance leaders plan to meet President Droupadi Murmu in mid-October to raise concerns regarding the administration of digital voter enrollment infrastructure.
