There is something magnificently Indian about the latest Election Commission controversy.
Only in India can three people sit in the same constitutional institution, two of them apparently write down their objections to what is being done, concerns pile up over voter deletions, voter additions, software access and Form 6, and then the institution emerge to solemnly announce: “Everything was unanimous.”
Marvellous. The decision was apparently both objected to and unanimous. The Commissioners were concerned, but there was no disagreement. The system was apparently centralised, but nobody was being denied access. The electoral rolls lost more than 13 crore names from draft rolls across 30 states and Union Territories, yet democracy, we are assured, remains perfectly healthy.
And if you are confused, don't worry.
You are merely a voter. You are not expected to understand how the machinery works. You are expected to vote. Preferably after proving that you existed during some previous revision of the electoral roll. Welcome to the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR.
The acronym sounds harmless enough. Almost affectionate. SIR. Like the voter is entering a colonial office.
“Good morning, Sir.”
“Good morning. Are you a voter?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Prove it.”
“I have voted for years.”
“Excellent. Now prove that you have been voting.”
“But my name is on the electoral roll.”
“Was.”
“Was?”
“Yes. We revised it.”
“Why?”
“To make it accurate.”
“Wasn't it accurate before?”
“That is precisely why we revised it.”
And there you have the genius of bureaucracy: the system can create the problem that only the system can solve.
The controversy exploded after an Indian Express investigation reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over roughly ten months to decisions concerning voter additions and deletions, Form 6, electoral-roll software and access to the voter database. In one instance, the report said, objections were recorded as describing action as “unauthorised and illegal”. The two Commissioners also reportedly raised concerns about gradual centralisation of electoral-roll data.
Fourteen objections. Fourteen.
At some point, this stops sounding like routine office correspondence and starts resembling the minutes of a marriage counsellor.
“Dear CEC, we have discussed this several times. You continue to do it. We continue to object. Perhaps we need professional help.”
But the ECI has a perfectly respectable answer. It says the final SIR decisions were unanimous.
The Commission reiterated this after its full meeting on Saturday, saying the June 24, 2025 SIR order received unanimous approval and that the Supreme Court upheld that order on May 27, 2026. It also announced measures intended to ease the process for voters facing notices and ordered, among other things, that meeting agendas be circulated in advance and minutes issued.
Ah! Minutes. Now we are getting somewhere. Because apparently the democratic miracle requires not merely elections but minutes of meetings about elections. And perhaps this is where the entire controversy can be reduced to one simple question: Who knew what, when, and who authorised it?
That is not a trivial bureaucratic question.
The Election Commission is not the Residents' Welfare Association deciding whether the park should have two benches or three.
Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections and electoral rolls in the Election Commission. The Constitution makes the CEC the Chairman when other Election Commissioners are appointed.
And the 2023 law says something rather inconvenient for anyone who believes that “CEC” means “Chief Everything Commissioner”.
Section 18 says the Commission's business should, as far as possible, be transacted unanimously. If the Commissioners differ, the matter is decided by majority.
In other words: CEC is chairman, not emperor.
The Election Commission is a Commission. Not: The Election Commission featuring Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and his supporting cast.
This distinction matters enormously. Because the constitutional genius of the arrangement lies precisely in collective decision-making.
Imagine the Reserve Bank Governor announcing: “Good news. Monetary policy was unanimously decided.” Two deputy governors immediately produce three pages of objections.
Governor: “Those were merely suggestions.”
Deputy Governor: “We said the opposite.”
Governor: “Yes, but we said it unanimously.”
Welcome to Indian institutional grammar.
In politics, dissent is often interpreted as conspiracy. In bureaucracy, dissent is called “feedback”. In cricket, dissent is called “appealing”. And in the Election Commission, apparently, it can become unanimity with footnotes.
The most troubling part of the Indian Express report was not merely that two Commissioners objected. It was what they objected to.
Form 6 is not a restaurant menu. It is the statutory form through which an eligible citizen applies to become a voter.
Yet the report said that a new question linked the applicant to the electoral roll of the previous SIR and required applicants to indicate whether their own, their parents' or grandparents' names appeared in that earlier roll. The two Commissioners reportedly questioned the legality of this alteration.
Imagine telling an 18-year-old: “Congratulations. You are now an adult.”
“Thank you.”
“You may vote.”
“Wonderful.”
“But first, please establish whether your grandfather existed in an electoral roll twenty years ago.”
“My grandfather died before I was born.”
“That's unfortunate.”
“Can I still vote?”
“Please submit documentary evidence that your grandfather existed.”
This is how democracy can become a family-history examination.
Who was your grandfather? Where did he vote? Was his name correctly spelt? Did the software like him?
And if the software didn't like him? Well, democracy has encountered a technical difficulty. That brings us to the most deliciously modern part of this saga: the software.
For decades, Indians have been taught that democracy is about citizens, constitutions, political parties, manifestos and votes. Apparently we forgot one important participant: the database.
The Indian Express reported that the two Commissioners raised concerns about gradual centralisation of electoral-roll databases and whether statutory officials at the state and constituency levels retained proper access. One Commissioner reportedly proposed an audit to establish that only authorised statutory officials could make changes to the voter database.
And this is where the Indian voter encounters the ultimate democratic paradox. You may be an actual human being. But if the database doesn't recognise you, you have become administratively metaphysical. You exist physically. You exist socially. You may even have an Aadhaar card, passport, PAN card, driving licence, electricity bill, bank account, property papers and forty-three WhatsApp groups proving that you are alive.
But the database says: “No.”
And democracy replies: “The database knows best.”
In Goa, according to the investigation, 97 voters were found eligible by Electoral Registration Officers after hearings, but software limitations reportedly prevented their decisions from being properly recorded before the final roll deadline. The ECI has since said that 81 of those 97 voters have filled Form 6 for inclusion.
Ninety-seven may sound small. But that is precisely the point. Democracy does not have a minimum threshold below which a disenfranchised citizen becomes statistically irrelevant. One voter matters. Even if that voter is the only voter in the room. Especially then. Because the great danger of digitisation is not that computers make mistakes.
It is that humans begin treating computer mistakes as facts.
“The software rejected you.”
“But I am eligible.”
“Yes.”
“Then correct it.”
“We cannot.”
“Why?”
“The software doesn't allow it.”
“Who controls the software?”
“Don't ask complicated questions.”
And suddenly Franz Kafka has been appointed Chief Electoral Officer.
But let us not forget the politics.
The Opposition has described the controversy as evidence of institutional capture and “vote chori”. The ruling side has rejected those allegations and accused the Opposition of making baseless claims and undermining institutions. The ECI has maintained that internal technical notes and concerns are part of normal functioning and that final SIR decisions were unanimous.
So we now have two competing narratives.
Narrative One: “The Election Commission is being manipulated.”
Narrative Two: “The Opposition is manipulating the Election Commission controversy.”
And somewhere between these two narratives sits the poor voter. He is holding his voter ID. He is looking at the television. He is listening to politicians shouting. And he is wondering:“Am I still on the list?”
That may ultimately be the most important question. Not whether Rahul Gandhi has made a statement. Not whether the BJP has held a press conference. Not whether one political party calls another anti-democratic. Not whether someone demands the CEC's resignation.
The fundamental question is: Can an ordinary citizen trust that his or her name will be on the electoral roll, and that any deletion will be transparent, lawful and challengeable?
That is the heart of the matter.
The ECI's latest response does contain significant corrective measures. It says voters facing notices over discrepancies will ordinarily not have to appear personally before an Electoral Registration Officer; Booth Level Officers can collect documents from their homes; hearings can be conducted online in exceptional cases; help desks and special camps will be established; and special enrolment drives will assist excluded voters and first-time voters.
Good. But institutional trust is not restored by issuing a press note. It is restored by making the machinery visible. If there were disagreements, disclose the disagreements. If they were merely technical suggestions, explain what happened to them. If every final decision was unanimous, show the record. If software changes were lawful, document the authority. If voters were wrongly excluded, restore them. If officials lacked access, explain why. If no wrongdoing occurred, transparency should be the easiest defence in the world.
Democracy should not be a magic show. The citizen should not have to watch the magician's hands. He should be allowed to inspect the ballot box.
And this brings us to the increasingly theatrical demands for the removal or prosecution of the CEC.
The Constitution deliberately makes removal extraordinarily difficult. Article 324 gives the CEC protection comparable to that of a Supreme Court judge, requiring the parliamentary process applicable to such removal and proof of misbehaviour or incapacity.
So shouting “impeach him” on television does not make it happen. Indian constitutional law is not an angry television debate. Fortunately. Otherwise half the country would be impeached before the commercial break.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has become an increasingly important institutional referee in the SIR controversy. That creates another delicious irony. The institution whose job is to supervise elections is itself being asked to explain its procedures to the institution whose job is to interpret the Constitution.
And so India's constitutional family meeting continues.
Parliament says: “We represent the people.”
Government says: “We have the mandate.”
Opposition says: “We represent the people.”
Election Commission says: “We conducted the election.”
Supreme Court says: “Show us the record.”
And the voter says: “Could somebody please tell me whether my name is still there?”
That is the real tragedy. Elections are not merely occasions when politicians discover the word “people”. They are the mechanism through which citizens decide who governs them. The referee therefore cannot afford merely to be impartial. The referee must look impartial. And, equally important, the referee must be able to demonstrate how decisions were reached.
The Supreme Court's 2023 Anoop Baranwal judgment itself described the Election Commission as a constitutional institution central to free and fair elections and examined the independence of its appointment process. Subsequent litigation has challenged aspects of the 2023 appointment law, including the replacement of the Chief Justice of India on the selection committee by a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister.
So perhaps the great Indian democratic magic show has finally reached its most important act.
Not: Who stole whose vote?
Not: Who is lying?
Not even: Who should resign?
The real question is: Can the institution entrusted with counting our votes convince the country that it is not counting anything else?
Because democracy can survive a bad government. It can survive an embarrassing Opposition. It can survive noisy television anchors. It can survive politicians accusing one another of practically everything short of stealing the Taj Mahal. What democracy cannot comfortably survive is the widespread belief that the referee has become part of the contest.
And here is the final joke.
The Election Commission is supposed to tell us who won. At the moment, the whole country seems to be waiting to find out whether the Commission itself can win back something much more basic: the confidence of the voter. And confidence, unlike a name on a voter roll, cannot simply be restored by clicking a button.
No software update can do it. No press note can do it. No slogan can do it. It requires something terribly old-fashioned. Transparency.
Imagine that. In the age of artificial intelligence, centralised databases and electoral software, Indian democracy may once again have to depend on the oldest technology known to civilisation: telling the truth, showing the paperwork, and letting the citizen see what happened.
What a revolutionary idea.
Perhaps someone should put it in Form 6.
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