New Delhi. Former Chief Election Commissioner of the country OP Rawat said on Wednesday that the changes made in the statutory voter registration Form-6 are 'completely wrong and illegal'. He has described the emergence of differences within the Election Commission as very serious and unfortunate.
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English daily 'The Indian Express' has reported that Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had repeatedly objected to the decisions and orders issued without their knowledge. Responding to this, Rawat said that such a situation would 'rarely' have arisen in the Election Commission. He said that the voter list software cannot bypass the decisions of regional authorities. According to the report, both election commissioners lodged objections at least 14 times in the last 10 months on issues ranging from registration and deletion of names of voters to changes in Form-6 and centralizing control over the database of voter lists.
Rawat, who was the Chief Election Commissioner from January to December 2018, said that this is an unfortunate situation. This would rarely have happened in the Election Commission. I have also been there, but I saw that decisions were always taken unanimously. He said that through Special Intensive Review (SIR), a system has been created which is now itself creating fear among the voters. that is not good. This is extremely unfortunate for our democracy. The former Chief Election Commissioner said that the objections raised regarding Form-6 are particularly serious, because both the Election Commissioners had said that the statutory form cannot be changed without amending the Electoral Registration Rules, 1960. According to the report, Joshi, in his objection lodged in May, had said that changes cannot be made in Form 6 through instructions issued for SIR and the 'legally sustainable' way would be to send a proposal to the government to amend the rules. Sandhu had also agreed to this. However, later a declaration linking new voter applications to SIR was included in the online Form-6.
According to the report, Sandhu lodged an objection in August saying the change was 'unauthorized and illegal'. It should be removed immediately. Rawat said that what the Election Commissioners have said that Form-6 was amended wrongly, there is no provision for it in the law, their opinion was not taken and no meeting was held – these are very serious allegations. The way Form-6 has been amended is wrong. This is completely wrong and illegal. He also strongly criticized the alleged centralization of control over the voter list database. According to reports, the situation became so serious that both the Election Commissioners separately approached Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan regarding changes in monitoring of the Election Commission's information technology system. Rawat said that if the software is designed in such a way that the regional officials consider any change necessary, but they are helpless because the software does not allow them to make the change, then it is completely illegal and wrong. He said that no one has the right to have a monopoly on all powers and say that we will make software and we will have to do whatever the software says. This has never happened before and should never happen. Rawat said that these developments threaten to further damage public trust in the Election Commission amid questions raised by political parties regarding SIR.
He said that the trust of the people in the institution which has always conducted free, fair and credible elections is being completely broken. Rawat said that as members of the constitutional institution both the Election Commissioners also had the responsibility to stop actions they considered inappropriate. He said that the question would also arise as to why he remained silent for 10 months. Why didn't he raise this issue earlier? He is also an officer of a constitutional institution. It is their responsibility not to let even a single mistake be made. Neither Sandhu nor Joshi have said anything publicly about the differences that have emerged or their objections. Under Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, the functioning of the Commission is required to be conducted with as much consensus as possible. If there is a difference of opinion among the members, the matter is decided on the basis of majority opinion. However, Election Commission sources said on Wednesday that all the decisions of the Commission, including those related to SIR, were taken unanimously despite differences and with the approval of the three Election Commissioners.