Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, Sep 30: The Election Commission has withdrawn the additional Special Intensive Revision (SIR)-related declaration from the online Form 6 in states where the electoral roll revision exercise has been completed.
The additional declaration has been removed from the ECINET app and portal as well as the respective Chief Electoral Officer portals in states where the SIR has concluded. New applicants in these states will now have to fill only the statutory Form 6 prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, for enrolment in the electoral roll.
In states and Union Territories where the SIR exercise is still underway, the additional declaration remains available on the ECINET portal. Under the declaration, new applicants are required to furnish details linking themselves, their parents or grandparents to electoral rolls prepared during an earlier intensive revision.
The development comes on a day when parties in the Congress-led opposition INDIA bloc are scheduled to meet in New Delhi to discuss their course of action over issues concerning Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The move follows a September 26 meeting of the full Commission comprising Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. Following the meeting, the poll panel said the additional declaration attached to Form 6 was meant specifically for the SIR period and that forms prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, would be used during the non-SIR period.
The issue had become contentious after a report in *The Indian Express* said Sandhu and Joshi had raised objections to changes related to Form 6. Joshi had objected on the grounds that a form prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, could not be modified without amending the rules, with Sandhu concurring with him.
After the SIR-related declaration was incorporated into the online Form 6 process on ECINET, Sandhu again objected to the change, describing it as “unauthorised/illegal” and seeking its removal, according to the report.
The EC has maintained in its public statements that Form 6 itself was not amended and that the declaration was an additional requirement specific to the SIR exercise. It has also said the declaration was upheld by the Supreme Court in its judgment concerning the Bihar SIR.
According to *The Indian Express* report cited in the original report, Sandhu and Joshi had recorded objections at least 14 times over the previous 10 months to decisions and orders concerning the SIR, which they claimed had been issued without their knowledge or recommendation.
The Commission, however, maintained in its September 26 statement that orders relating to the SIR had received the unanimous approval of all three Election Commissioners.