Amidst the controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, the Election Commission has taken a big decision. Now additional declaration form or Annexure-D will not be necessary along with Form-6. The Election Commission had already clarified that they had not made any legal changes in the original format of Statutory Form 6. However, the controversy started when the Commission mandatorily attached an additional declaration (Annexure-D) to it during the Special In-depth Review (SIR) process.
Now on Wednesday, the Election Commission has removed this additional declaration form from online Form 6 and restored the old form in those states where the SIR process has been completed. 'Old Form 6' i.e. Form 6 without additional declaration form will be filled online or offline. There are many differences between the old i.e. original Form 6 and SIR Form 6 i.e. declaration form.
The old Form 6 which is now applicable in non-SIR states will not contain any additional declaration. Because in SIR, the relationship of every voter with parents, grandparents or senior relatives has been confirmed. Now the details of the parents or guardian of the new voter filling Form 6 are recorded digitally.
It was necessary to provide details of parents/grandparents in Form 6 issued as initial arrangement for SIR. But in the original form, new applicants are not required to provide records related to the old electoral records of their parents or grandparents. During SIR, applicants were required to fill Form 6 and declare whether their names, their parents' or grandparents' names were registered in the voter list during the previous SIR conducted in the early 2000s.
Constituency and booth number were also mandatory columns. In this, it is not mandatory to give the previous assembly constituency number, polling station (booth) number or old serial number. While filling the online form, the applicant had to provide his family's assembly constituency number, polling booth number and serial number as per the previous SIR list.
Online Submission (ECINET Portal) Applicants can directly submit the form by uploading general personal information and age/residence certificate. Although it was technically said to be voluntary, the form was not being submitted further on the ECINET portal without filling it.
Impact on Voter Eligibility First time voters (18 years of age) can easily register without any previous family mapping. Young voters (those born after the 2000s) were facing huge problems in documentation, and voters whose names were earlier struck off were facing legal complications in re-inclusion.
What was this change and controversy?
According to the Election Commission (ECI), this additional declaration was added under the SIR process to prevent infiltration and ensure the accuracy of the voter list. However, within the Commission itself, two Election Commissioners (Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi) had objected to this, saying that under the Voters Registration Rules, 1960, only the Central Government has the power to make changes in the statutory Form 6 (with the approval of Parliament), the Election Commission cannot arbitrarily make it mandatory on the online portal. After this internal difference of opinion and controversy, the Election Commission agreed to remove it from non-SIR states and restricted it to only those states where Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is still going on.