State of the ECI

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), one feels, is turning out to be a failed exercise in the country. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar appears to have failed the Constitution and the people of the nation in the conduct of the SIR. He should resign (Page 1, “Opposition calls for CEC’s exit over ‘illegal conduct’”, September 24). That said, why did Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi remain silent for so long over their differences with the CEC on SIR deletions and related issues, when the electoral damage has already been caused? There is something more to it than meets the eye. This is a constitutional crisis in the country.

S. Ramakrishnasayee,

Chennai

It is really astonishing to see the way things have been unfolding at the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the last few months. While everyone expects an autonomous constitutional body to function democratically, it appears to have become a one-man show under the leadership of Gyanesh Kumar. He has centralised decision-making, lending credibility to the serious allegations made by the Opposition parties.

Kolikonda Sarathbabu,

Khammam, Telangana

It is extremely worrying to find the CEC in the eye of a storm. A position that shapes the destiny and fate of the nation in the midst of a serious controversy does not augur well for the nation. Corrective action needs to be taken on a war footing.

Balasubramaniam Pavani,

Secunderabad

The controversy surrounding the ECI’s SIR of electoral rolls has now reached a point where the fundamental question is no longer merely administrative: who decides who gets to exercise the constitutional right to vote?

The demand raised today by CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar deserves serious public attention. Mr. Dipke has demanded that the CEC step down and has also called for a halt to the present SIR process and an independent examination of the Election Commission’s functioning.

More significantly, reports have emerged that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections on multiple occasions regarding decisions connected with electoral rolls and the SIR exercise. The ECI, for its part, has maintained that its decisions were duly approved. This disagreement itself warrants the fullest institutional transparency.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has also demanded the CEC’s resignation, while the Opposition is reportedly preparing another removal/impeachment motion against him. These are political positions, but the underlying constitutional issue transcends party politics: the integrity of the electoral roll is inseparable from the integrity of representative democracy.

I am particularly concerned about the Supreme Court’s approach to SIR. In its Bihar judgment, the Court upheld the ECI’s authority to conduct the exercise, observing that an accurate and reliable electoral roll is necessary for free and fair elections. Yet, in my view, this was also a moment when the Court could have adopted an even stronger constitutional safeguard: wherever an electoral-roll revision creates a substantial risk of genuine citizens being excluded, the presumption should be overwhelmingly in favour of protecting their opportunity to vote, with speedy and effective remedies before an election takes place.

Universal adult suffrage was not a minor administrative promise of the Constitution-makers. It represented a revolutionary democratic commitment: every adult citizen, irrespective of wealth, caste, education or social status, would have an equal voice in choosing the government.

That principle should make us particularly cautious about any process that can result in large numbers of names disappearing from electoral rolls. Electoral-roll purification is legitimate when it removes ineligible, duplicate or otherwise invalid entries. But the burden of proving ineligibility cannot effectively be shifted onto genuine citizens in a manner that makes them fight simply to retain a right they already possess.

The question, therefore, is not whether electoral rolls should be revised. They must be accurate. The question is whether the mechanism of revision sufficiently protects the citizen whose name is removed.

The Court had an opportunity to place this principle at the centre of the SIR controversy. A stronger judicial insistence on prior notice, transparent reasons, accessible hearings, meaningful appeals and protection against exclusion immediately before elections could have reinforced the Constitution’s promise of universal adult suffrage.

The present controversy also raises a larger institutional question. The ECI s not merely another government department. It is a constitutional institution entrusted with the machinery through which the people exercise sovereign power. Its credibility depends not only on the correctness of its decisions but also on public confidence that no legitimate voter will be arbitrarily deprived of a voice.

The country, therefore, needs a transparent, independent and comprehensive examination of the SIR process, including the reported internal objections within the ECI, the criteria used for the deletion and restoration of names, the technological systems involved, and the remedies available to citizens.

Whatever one’s political affiliation, there should be one non-negotiable principle:

No citizen should lose the practical ability to participate in India’s democracy merely because an administrative process failed to protect his or her name on the electoral roll.

The right to vote is the instrument through which the citizen exercises democratic sovereignty. Protecting that right must remain the first consideration whenever electoral rolls are revised.

A. Mariafrancis,

Chennai

Our family of four has been residing at the same address for the last nine years and has voted in all the elections since 2017. We submitted our enumeration forms against acknowledgement during the recent SIR, along with documentary evidence and proof. Yet, to our shock, we found that we had been shown as having permanently shifted. We were advised to submit Form 6A for fresh inclusion. The ECI website is not helpful for filing Form 6A.

It seems the ECI’s motto is to delete as many voters as possible rather than include them. One cannot keep running around ECI offices and meeting BLOs for inclusion. Tired of it, I chose to stop filing forms. If I do not vote, I do not suffer any loss.

Krishna Prasad,

Hyderabad