A ROLL CALL FOR DEMOCRACY

The Supreme Court has validated the EC’s legality of mass revision of the voter lists. But reports say two of the EC’s three commissioners themselves objected to the way it’s being run this month. And here’s the real story in order.

Gaddi Chhod Vote Chor

LOP Rahul Gandhi on 7 August 2025 alleged that the Mahadevapura constituency roll in Karnataka has over 1 lakh “stolen” voters due to duplicate entries, fake addresses and single-address voters. He claimed that the EC was colluding with the BJP in the 2024 polls. On 17 August 2025, Gyanesh Kumar gave Gandhi a public 7 day ultimatum to either submit a sworn affidavit or apologize to the nation but Gandhi refused. Hence the commission treated these claims as unsubstantiated.

The SIR Trail

The EC released its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls nationally, starting with Bihar in mid 2025 ahead of that state’s November elections. Bihar’s results came on 14 November 2025 and the landslide victory was for NDA with Congress reduced to just 6 of the 61 seats it contested on. Again Congress charged vote theft.

The SIR then spread to the states of West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other states where TMC alleged mass bulk submission of Form 6 applications by BJP workers to add outside voters to Bengal’s rolls. More than 27 lakh electors are said to have been deleted during the West Bengal round and appeals are still lying with the tribunals.

The Latest “Gyaneshgate”

The newest twist comes from inside the Election Commission. Reports say that two out of the three Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi have filed formal objections at least 14 times in the last 10 months to the changes to Form 6, the form used for registering new voters.

The specific issue is that the EC’s ECINET portal added a new declaration section to Form 6 asking new applicants about their family’s status in the last SIR roll without formally amending the statutory form. Under Section 28 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, only the Central Government (after consulting the EC) can amend such a form, via gazette notification. With context to this case no such notification exists.

The Referee Accused of Playing Favourites

The ECI is an autonomous constitutional body, set up 25 January 1950, built to run free and fair elections. Article 324 gives it exclusive control over elections and Article 324(5) protects the CEC’s tenure so the ruling government can’t remove them at will.

India’s courts treat free and fair elections as part of the Constitution’s basic structure and when that fairness is publicly questioned it tests whether democracy in our country still functions as promised.

As of late September 2026, the Supreme Court has closed the legal question on SIR’s validity but civil society groups still want the CEC removed and deleted names restored, while the EC insists its process is transparent and court-endorsed.

Concluding Statement

Elections are only as trustworthy as the roll behind them and that trust is being debated all over the country right now.