No Election Commissioner has dissented on any decision since Feb 2025: Sources

Amid questions over dissent in the Election Commission and its handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, sources in the poll body on Thursday told India Today that no Election Commissioner has dissented on any decision since February 19, 2025.

The assertion comes a week after The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally recorded their objections 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders concerning the SIR process under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

According to the report, the objections covered several aspects of the exercise, including the centralisation of the ECINet electoral roll database platform, changes to Form 6 and decisions on deletion of names from electoral rolls.

The issue has gained further attention as INDIA bloc parties met to discuss the SIR exercise and raised questions over the Election Commission's functioning.

The poll body sources, however, maintain that SIR is a statutory and established process for revision of electoral rolls and sources said that all decisions taken by the three-member poll body since February 19, 2025, have been unanimous.

According to the EC, the central objective of SIR is to identify dead, duplicate, fake and shifted voters while ensuring that all eligible voters remain on the electoral rolls.

While answering the questions about Form 6, which is used by new voters and those seeking to add their names to the electoral rolls, the EC sources said that there has been no change in the form.

On the legal scrutiny of SIR, the commission sources pointed to the Supreme Court's proceedings, saying the court has never suspended the exercise.

The sources said the court allowed SIR to proceed, including the voter declaration and mapping process, while putting safeguards in place for voters.

The EC has described SIR as a comprehensive process that has been followed for years.

It said documents have been sought only from voters born after 1987, while errors in mapping are also being identified through software to ensure that fake or duplicate names do not remain on the electoral rolls.

NONE OF 25,000 OFFICIALS INVOLVED IN SIR PROCESS COMPLAINED ABOUT IT

The EC has also stressed that the process of adding and deleting names is decentralised and carried out at the level of Electoral Registration Officers and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers, rather than personally by the Chief Election Commissioner.

According to sources, none of the nearly 25,000 EROs and AEROs has complained about the process.

Sources also explained that some of the concerns around SIR have centred on individual cases, adding that Booth Level Officers have been trained to visit voters' homes at least three times for verification, including in cases where voters are not present or have shifted.

Explaining questions over 97 Goa voters who were initially left out of the final electoral rolls, sources said the names could not be included due to a technical glitch.

Of these, 88 names have since been added, while three people were found to be Portuguese citizens and six were abroad at the time. The remaining cases are being verified.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also raised the issue of 727 voters allegedly being removed from the electoral rolls at Bela Estate. According to EC sources, the process of adding new names is still underway in Delhi.

Sources explained that when BLOs visited Bela Estate, no one was present there, raising the question of whom the officials could have approached for signatures or verification.

According to EC sources, anyone who has signed and submitted the SIR form to a BLO will have their name confirmed in the draft electoral roll.

On the demand to re-include around 11 crore voters in the electoral rolls, the commission sources said that this would mean restoring names that were removed during the verification process but whose re-verification has not yet been completed.