Congress challenges ECI claims on SIR

Stepping up its attack on the poll panel, the Congress on Sunday said the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) proposed measures related to SIR are an admission that the exercise has been a “disaster” and asserted that the “piecemeal” steps for deleted or at risk voters will do little to mitigate this “mass disenfranchisement”.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the press note issued by the Election Commission last night has already been debunked and exposed for what it is —” a desperate attempt at damage control that hides all and reveals nothing”.

Ramesh put out what he described as a “further demolition” of the thoroughly meaningless press note of the ECI.

He said the proposed measures around the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls are an admission that it has been a “disaster”.

“The piecemeal measures for deleted or at-risk voters will do little to mitigate this mass disenfranchisement. For 5.43 crore voters who are at risk of deletion, the ECI has promised that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will now visit their houses. This was supposed to happen during the house-to-house enumeration phase,” Ramesh said in his statement posted on X.

“We know that in practice these visits were sparse and sporadic. What is the value of promising a second round of visits which likely will not happen? The logic of repeating a process done poorly once must be examined,” he said.

What is the point of this SIR process which has turned into a “colossal waste” of public resources and a nuisance for every citizen, Ramesh asked.

“For nearly 14 crore voters deleted so far in all 3 phases of the SIR, the Commission’s answer is that they must now apply afresh to their Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) for inclusion. First disenfranchise en masse, and then ask voters to get themselves re-added,” the Congress leader said.

There is widespread evidence of targeted deletions of marginalised voters to benefit the BJP and the ECI has not addressed this charge, he said.

“The centrality of the ECINet software to the electoral roll preparation, its deletion of eligible voters and illegal override of EROs have not been denied. Nothing has been proposed to substantively address these issues,” Ramesh said.

The ECI has proposed a committee to certify that the software “complies with the Acts and Rules”, he said, adding that this is an admission that its legality is in doubt after it has been used all over the country during the SIR.

“We have clear evidence that ECINet was used to delete eligible voters, overriding ERO decisions — this is illegal. ECI claims to be resolving the issue in Goa, where it was caught. What about West Bengal, where the same thing happened at a much larger scale?” Ramesh said.

What about all other states where EROs may have been overruled to delete eligible voters, he asked.

The ECI has still not clearly stated that EROs will be the final authority over the electoral roll, as defined in the Representation of the People Act, 1950, he said.

Ramesh’s remarks come a day after the Election Commission asserted that all SIR orders received unanimous consent from all three commissioners and that the updates to Form 6 for voter enrolment were upheld by the Supreme Court, as it sought to address issues at the centre of a raging row over decision-making in the poll panel and concerns over exclusion of voters from the rolls.

After its first meeting following reports claiming differences between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the two election commissioners, the poll panel had said in a statement that the letters sent by Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi to the Cabinet Secretary pertained to an officer on deputation, rather than policy or IT division matters.

The Indian Express has claimed that Sandhu and Joshi had objected on record at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders on SIR that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation.

Ramesh further said the ECI has not been transparent about who is operating ECINet.

It is only from TCS disclosures that it was revealed they were involved, he said.

“Why this lack of transparency? Does the ongoing struggle to control the Tata Group have anything to do with this?” he asked.

The clarification on the letter to the Cabinet secretary hides more than it reveals, Ramesh claimed.

The ECI has downplayed the letter as concerning “the working of an officer on deputation” and unrelated to “any policy matter of the IT division”.

However, the letter was prompted by an order that removed oversight from the IT division. It stemmed from concerns repeatedly raised around the opaque and non-compliant operation of the IT division, he said.

The core issue was that the IT division was overriding “statutory safeguards” through ECINet, Ramesh alleged and added that these issues still remain unaddressed.

The lack of transparency around widespread use of AI in electoral roll preparation is dangerous, he argued.

“The disastrous Delhi SIR has revealed that AI is being used in the large-scale flagging of voters. The Delhi CEO’s defence was that some of the notices were ‘system-generated’. The ECI has not been transparent about the use of AI in the SIR,” he said.

“In November 2025, the West Bengal CEO admitted to the use of AI. But in July 2026, the ECI told UN Special Rapporteurs that ‘no artificial intelligence is used at any stage’. The ECI must be transparent about AI use,” Ramesh said.

Ramesh claimed that the illegal change to Form 6 has not been denied, and the weak attempt to defend it only raises more questions.

The ECI has attempted to use a Supreme Court judgement from 27 May, 2026 permitting the addition of a new declaration in Form 6 to defend the change, but this falls flat since the change was made in July to the online Form 6 for all voters, not just for SIR, he said.

“The same judgement also states that the ECI on its own cannot depart from the statutory procedure without a rational basis,” he said.

Ramesh pointed out that the non-SIR Form 6 pathway being offered is also deceptive, as the Special Summary Revision (SSR) has been frozen since 2024; there is no non-SIR voter roll being published where voters can have their name added through non-SIR Form 6.

The promise to follow basic operating procedures is an admission that they have been disregarded thus far, he said.

“This is a shocking state of affairs. The ECI now promises to circulate agendas before its own meetings and complete performance appraisals on time. We know that the ECs themselves were being kept in the dark and finding out things from the media,” he said.

This flagrant disregard for the law and procedures in a Constitutional authority is deeply troubling, he added.

The Congress has earlier said the ECI was in “damage control” mode after differences within the poll body came out following a media “expose” and demanded that the ongoing SIR exercise is suspended immediately.

It has also said that nothing short of CEC Kumar’s resignation or prosecution will suffice.