On September 30, the Election Commission announced that it has withdrawn the additional Special Intensive Revision (SIR) declaration from the online Form 6 in every state where the electoral roll revision exercise has finished. The decision applies to the ECINET app, the central portal and the respective Chief Electoral Officer portals, meaning new applicants in those regions will now complete only the statutory Form 6 prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
In contrast, states and Union Territories where the SIR process is still under way will continue to display the extra declaration on the ECINET platform. The declaration requires applicants to provide details that link them, their parents or grandparents to rolls prepared during an earlier intensive revision.
The move coincides with a meeting of parties in the Congress‑led opposition INDIA bloc in New Delhi, where they plan to discuss strategies concerning Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
It follows a full‑Commission meeting held on September 26, attended by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. After that session, the poll panel clarified that the additional declaration attached to Form 6 was intended solely for the SIR period, while the ordinary forms under the 1960 Rules would be used otherwise.
Controversy arose after *The Indian Express* reported that Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi had repeatedly objected to modifications of Form 6. Joshi argued that a form governed by the 1960 Rules could not be altered without amending the rules, a view Sandhu endorsed. When the SIR‑related declaration was later incorporated into the online Form 6 process, Sandhu described the step as “unauthorised/illegal” and called for its removal.
The Election Commission has consistently maintained that Form 6 itself remains unchanged and that the declaration is an extra requirement specific to the SIR exercise, a position upheld by the Supreme Court in its judgment on the Bihar SIR.
According to the *Indian Express* report, Sandhu and Joshi logged at least 14 objections over the past ten months to SIR‑related orders they claimed were issued without their knowledge. Nevertheless, the Commission asserted in its September 26 statement that all SIR orders received unanimous approval from the three Election Commissioners.
Image: daijiworld.com
📰 Source: Daijiworld