Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 1: As the Election Commission of India (ECI) changed its earlier order on Form 6 allowing online submission without the attached declaration in states where the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of the electoral rolls currently not in progress, the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi posed a question on Thursday who at the ECI ordered the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to carry out the “illegal” change.
In a post on X, Mr Gandhi asked whether Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was pressured into doing this. “The online Form 6 was changed illegally — as the EC’s own Commissioners have recorded. Who at the ECI ordered Tata Consultancy Services to make that change?” Mr Gandhi said. “Who at TCS signed off on it? And were they pressured into doing it?” he said on X.
TCS, which is India’s biggest private-sector employer, handles the core digital backend infrastructure and portal management named ECINET for the poll body.
While the online Form 6 is normally used for new voter registrations, during the SIR process, it was also used for re-enlisting those who had been deleted during the enumeration phase. A separate declaration was added to the physical form regarding the mapping of self or parents with electoral rolls from the period of the previous SIR. The applicants could not submit the online form without completing the declaration attached.
It is this issue that Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu had reportedly flagged in separate notes and letters in May 2026 and August 2026 respectively. On Wednesday, the ECI reverted to allowing the online submission of Form 6 without having to complete the attached declaration that had been brought in for the SIR.
Tagging Mr Gandhi’s post, the Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh attempted to give the answer to the poser claiming that the change in the Form 6 was brought in under pressure from the PM-HM duo,” hinting at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Mr Ramesh said, “Form 6 changes were introduced by the CEC unconstitutionally in mid-July 2026 to remove Gen Z voters from the electoral roll. Clearly, the move was orchestrated by the PM-HM (Narendra Modi-Amit Shah) duo.”
Mr Gandhi’s remarks came a day after the opposition INDIA bloc at their meeting on Wednesday announced a joint “save democracy marches” in all districts and five major rallies demanding that future polls be held with ballot papers and appealing to the Supreme Court to expedite cases of SIR and electoral “malpractices.”
The INDIA bloc meeting attended by leaders of as many as 19 political parties that lasted over three-and-a-half hours, decided that all opposition MPs will march to the Election Commission of India headquarters on October 6 and the leaders would meet the President to highlight the issues related to alleged irregularities in voter list revision.
The opposition grouping discussed the demand for Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation and said they would not relent till he was ousted. The INDIA bloc meeting was held days after the media expose that two Election Commissioners (ECs) Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected on record at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders on the SIR that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation.
According to the report, an additional declaration relating to the previous SIR electoral roll was added to the online Form 6 on the ECINET portal. The declaration sought information on whether the applicant’s name, or that of their parent or grandparent, appeared in the electoral roll prepared during the previous SIR. In their dissent, the two Election Commissioners had reportedly said that this was beyond the poll body’s mandate and only the Law Ministry was empowered to suggest or effect any changes. Both the Commissioners contended that the form prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, could not be modified without amending the rules.
Under fire over the red flags raised by two of its Commissioners over the SIR process, the EC has asserted that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution and all its orders carry full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.
Form 6 is attached to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Only the Central government, through the Ministry of Law and Justice, has the power to amend the Rules, and by extension, Form 6. On September 26, the EC said in a press release that the declaration accompanying Form 6 would now be used only during the period of the SIR. It was found that the EC had removed the fields requiring parents’ and grandparents’ details in Form 6.
EC officials maintain that adding a separate declaration form with Form 6 and Form 8 (used for changing particulars) had been approved by the full commission when the SIR process began in Bihar last year and was again ratified in the second and third phases.
The Election Commission, however, later clarified that no changes were made to the original statutory Form 6 and only a separate Annexure-D was attached to it during the SIR process. They said Form 6, in itself, was never amended and that the declaration was merely added along with it. According to the officials, the issue with the online submission of the form occurred due to changes made by the IT department so that a person filling the form does not have to e-sign twice — both in Form 6 and separately in the declaration. This meant that it had to be filled for the form to be submitted.
The Commission also maintained that the orders relating to SIR had the unanimous approval of all three Election Commissioners. EC officials also said the power to add the declaration form was upheld by the Supreme Court on May 27, 2026.