Former Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh has accused Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of removing the names of all the voters who had been listed by the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) after 2003, without any basis, without any enquiry, and without any show cause to the registered voters, calling it blatantly illegal.

In an open letter posted on social media account X on Monday (September 28, 2026) the retired IAS officer also urged Opposition parties to boycott elections until the CEC and the Election Commissioners resign.

“Do you want India to remain a democracy? Then you must understand what Gyanesh Kumar, the CEC, and his bosses are doing in the so-called SIR. They are violating the law,” Mr. Singh said.

The letter comes amid a row within the Election Commission of India (ECI), which is headed by Mr. Kumar and includes Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi as Commissioners. According to an report, Mr. Kumar was repeatedly questioned in recent months by his two colleagues over the integrity of the voter database, changes to the way new voters are enrolled and the security of the electoral rolls. The report said Mr. Sandhu and Mr. Joshi objected to several decisions taken without their knowledge, and that they were kept in the dark at least 14 times in the past 10 months.

Allegations under RP Act

Former MP from Bihar’s Ara Parliamentary constituency, Mr. Singh, said that as per Section 21 of the law, a special revision is to be undertaken only in special cases, for reasons to be recorded in writing in each case; and that also only in any constituency or part of a constituency. He asserted that intensive revision for the whole country was illegal.

Deep rot: Editorial On the Election Commission of India’s functioning during its SIR

He pointed out that an exception allowed for special cases cannot become the rule, adding that the Supreme Court order upholding the general SIR was wrong. He also asked whether the decision was taken by the full Commission or by Mr. Kumar alone.

He alleged that Section 21 requires the roll in force at the time of notification to remain valid until the revision is complete, which happens only after all appeals are disposed of. Yet, he said, the new roll with deletions was used in elections while appeals were pending.

Citing Section 22, he mentioned that only ERO can remove a voter’s name from the roll and that also only on the grounds listed in the provision after a specific enquiry, after giving the concerned person a reasonable opportunity of being heard, and only after appeals against his order are disposed off.

“Gyanesh Kumar removed the names of all the voters who had been listed by the ERO’s after 2003, without any basis, without any enquiry, and without any show cause to the registered voters. This was blatantly illegal,” Mr. Singh said.

He added that the persons whose names were removed had to apply as fresh voters in Form 6 and give evidence that they were eligible to be registered. He termed it a clear violation of the Supreme Court judgement in Lal Babu Hussain and Others v. Electoral Registration Officer and Others, [(1995) 3 SCC 100]. That ruling, he said, places the burden of proof on the enquiry authority or the objector, not the voter.

Form 6, Form 7 and “logical discrepancy”

Mr. Singh said that CEC added a new appendix to Form 6, which he was not authorised to do, as Form 6 is mandated by statutory rules and against the views of the two election commissioners.

“The decisions of the commission are to be taken either unanimously – or by a majority. The majority was against the addition of the new appendix to the form. So the addition of the new appendix was against the decisions of the Commission itself. So why was it added? On whose orders? This was illegal,” Mr. Singh said.

He further said, “This appendix asks the applicant to state the serial number in the 2003 voter list on which their parents’ names were listed. Where can an ordinary person – a young man of 18; access the 2003 roll in 2026? This stopped the registration of all young voters. BJP knows that young voters will not vote for it.”

He questioned who filed Form 7 objections in bulk, and how they were acted upon when the signatories did not appear. He alleged that names of 16 lakh voters found valid by the ERO were not registered in West Bengal because appeals were filed against them. He said the two Commissioners had said they did not authorise the appeals and asked who did. He claimed that in the appeals decided so far, 90% of the voters left out were found valid.

He asked how elections were allowed to be held when the appeals of lakhs of voters were pending? He termed “logical discrepancy”a ridiculous thing adding that Mr. Kumar does not have any idea of how the poor live in India and their children are not born in hospitals.

Impact on the poor

Mr. Singh said poor families often do not have birth certificates and give estimated years of birth. Excluding names where the gap between father and child was under 15 years, without an enquiry, was contrary to Section 21. He added that the largest number of exclusions have been the poor and the underprivileged, those without a voice. He said two Commissioners had pointed out that the ERO, the District Election Officer and the Chief Electoral Officer were not being allowed to access the voter list, and that 97 electors found valid by the ERO in Goa had still not been added to the roll.

Mr. Singh said the largest number of exclusions were among the poor, many of whom work far from home and cannot afford to return for a month to register. Illegal immigrants, he said, are unaffected, as they obtain Aadhaar and ration cards on arrival.

He said 13 crore names had been deleted so far, which he put at 13% of voters, with the SIR still incomplete. The NDA-INDIA gap in 2024 was only 3%, he said, so the deletions would have a material impact on elections. He suggested that centralisation could be used to cut voters from booths that vote against the NDA and asked: “Is this what happened?” He said a press note issued after the Commission’s meeting on September 26 confirms the illegalities he listed.

Demands

Mr. Singh urged the Opposition to unite, as moving an impeachment against Gyanesh Kumar would be futile, as they do not have the numbers.

“All opposition parties should unite and say that they will not participate in any election till the CEC and Election Commissioners resign and the selection of their successors is as per the previous selection system, with the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and a sitting Supreme Court judge. Elections held in states while the appeals of lakhs of voters were pending must be set aside and fresh elections held. And the poll must be held by ballot not by EVMs because no electronic system has yet been invented which cannot be hacked,” Mr. Singh said.

Mr. Singh said the Supreme Court’s SIR judgment had besmirched its reputation and was “at par in infamy” with the judgment upholding the Emergency. He also said the delay in hearing the challenge to the law on selecting Election Commissioners was sending a bad message. “Let us unite to save our democracy,” he said.