Pabitra Banerjee: An unprecedented internal rift has surfaced within the Election Commission of India (ECI), with Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally and on record registering objections at least 14 times over a 10-month period against key decisions issued by the poll panel.The documented disagreements primarily center around the nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and database management policies.
According to official records, the two commissioners flagged multiple controversial actions taken without their formal consensus or knowledge:Unilateral Form 6 Changes: The commissioners objected to unauthorized modifications made to Form 6 (used for new voter registrations), which introduced mandatory questions linking applicants to past SIR databases without proper statutory rule amendments.Centralization of Databases: Serious concerns were raised over the gradual centralization of voter roll management via Delhi-based IT divisions. The dissenters warned that centralized software modules effectively bypassed ground-level statutory officers, such as Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), undermining traditional decentralized safeguards.
Administrative Escalation: In a rare and striking move, the internal friction extended to the commissioners directly writing to the Cabinet Secretary to report administrative orders altering IT system oversight.The revelations have sparked intense political debate regarding institutional transparency. Meanwhile, official ECI sources have firmly maintained that major decisions, including the nationwide roll revision, had the collective approval and unanimous consensus of the full commission.
