A huge constitutional crisis has arisen in national politics regarding the democratic structure of the country and the purity of the electoral process. After the deep internal differences within the Election Commission regarding the Special Intensive Revision of Voter List or SIR campaign became public, the Congress Party has taken a very aggressive stance. Congress has started concrete preparations to bring a formal impeachment motion against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in both the Houses of Parliament and for this has made high-level contacts with all the opposition parties present in the Parliament. The opposition camp alleges that the impartiality of the Election Commission has become completely doubtful and the Chief Election Commissioner has taken unilateral and unconstitutional decisions by keeping his fellow election commissioners in the dark. Preparations for impeachment motion in Parliament, nationwide protest march on September 25 According to news agency ANI and party sources, the opposition parties will submit a formal notice of impeachment against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha during the upcoming session of Parliament or within the next two weeks as per the rules. Before taking this serious step, the Congress Parliamentary Party has held detailed discussions with all the constituent parties of the opposition alliance so that this proposal can get the joint support of the entire opposition on the floor of the House. Not only at the legislative level, but the Congress Party has also made a comprehensive strategy to take this issue directly to the public court. The party high command has issued strict instructions to all its State Congress Committees and state units to take out massive protest marches to the Chief Electoral Officer offices of their respective states on September 25. Congress demands that the Chief Election Commissioner should be immediately removed from his constitutional post and an impartial criminal and administrative investigation should be conducted into the entire matter. Big disclosure of Indian Express: Election Commissioners lodged objections 14 times in 10 months. This entire political storm started with an explosive investigative report of the prestigious English daily 'Indian Express', which exposed the layers of tussle going on in the closed rooms of the Election Commission. The report, quoting concrete administrative documents, revealed that Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Election Commissioner Vivek Joshi, part of the three-member Election Commission, had officially lodged strong protest letters at least 14 times during the last 10 months. The surprising thing was that four of these serious objections were lodged in just one day. Both senior election commissioners had written officially that several important decisions related to voter list revision, administrative appointments and policy directions were taken and issued unilaterally without their knowledge or consent. After this revelation, the ruling party and the opposition have come face to face; While the opposition is calling it a direct attack on democracy, the Bharatiya Janata Party says that having diverse views in any multi-member body is a natural proof of a healthy democracy. Serious conflict over additional declaration in Form-6 and centralization of ECI NET: The report revealed that the biggest bone of contention was the unexpected change made in 'Form-6' related to registration of new voters. Under the new rules, voters applying were asked to provide detailed information about the voter list of their father and grandfather. Both the Election Commissioners had expressed strong technical and legal objection to this and said that any such change in the election registration rules or forms can be considered valid only if the amendment is duly notified in the Official Gazette by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice. The second most serious controversy arose over the centralization of the Election Commission's new integrated digital platforms 'ECI Net' and 'ERONet'. It is alleged that by completely centralizing this software, the powers of the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AERO) who conduct the electoral process at the ground level were limited, which affected transparency at the lower level and led to technical disruption in many states including Goa. Apart from this, both the Election Commissioners had also lodged a complaint directly with the Cabinet Secretary regarding the functioning of the Commission's senior administrative officer Manish Garg and the division of work. Official clarification of the Election Commission: Differences are a healthy tradition, 40 new initiatives were taken unanimously. After the news of internal differences and unilateral decisions of the Commission made headlines, the Election Commission has issued an official press release and given its detailed clarification. The Commission said that as a multi-member constitutional body, it is not unusual to have different opinions or differences of opinion on various policy topics, but it is part of independent deliberations. The Commission claimed that a total of 40 new policy and technical initiatives, including the SIR campaign, launched across the country in recent months were finalized only with full consensus. On the Form-6 controversy, sources in the Commission clarified that no legal changes were made in the original form, but only an additional declaration was attached to make the verification process transparent. On the centralization of ECI Net, the Commission argued that this step was taken with the aim of preventing unauthorized data tampering and to follow stringent national cyber security protocols, so that the election database remains completely secure. The Commission also reminded that the process of SIR is not being adopted for the first time in the country, rather it has been conducted successfully nine times before and in May 2026, the Supreme Court of the country had also reviewed the fairness and constitutional validity of the SIR and completely justified it.
