Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi: Congress leader Pawan Khera on Sunday questioned the Election Commission’s handling of concerns over changes to Form 6, arguing that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was based on a form change that could not have been made without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
Khera Says Rules Can’t Be Changed Without Parliament’s Nod
Speaking to news agency PTI, Khera said the 1960 Rules could only be amended through Parliament, and pointed out that this was the central point of disagreement between Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi and CEC Gyanesh Kumar, questioning whether the Commission had ever addressed this objection.
Congress Calls Bengal and Bihar Elections “Illegal” Over Form 6 Issue
Khera alleged that the entire SIR exercise rested on an “illegally changed” Form 6, arguing that if the form itself was illegal, the SIR arising from it and, by extension, the elections held in Bengal and Bihar based on that SIR would also stand illegal. He said no answer had been provided on this question so far.
Background: What the Form 6 Controversy Is About
The row centres on a requirement added for new voters to furnish details linking themselves, or their parents or grandparents, to electoral rolls from the previous SIR. According to earlier Indian Express reports, Election Commissioners Joshi and Sandhu had objected to this addition to Form 6, arguing that a statutory form cannot be altered without formally amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The Election Commission, however, has maintained that Form 6 itself was not changed, and that the SIR-related requirement was merely an additional declaration prescribed under its SIR orders, adding that the declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR had already been upheld by the Supreme Court.
