Election Commissioners object 14 times over poll panel decisions

Two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, formally recorded objections at least 14 times over 10 months against decisions made by the Election Commission of India without their knowledge. The disputes center on the Special Intensive Revision that began in Bihar in June 2025 and removed over 13 crore names from draft voter rolls across 30 States and Union Territories. Sandhu and Joshi raised concerns over new voter registrations, deletions, voter restorations, appeals processes, and the security of electoral rolls. They also complained to the Cabinet Secretary regarding changes to work allocation that removed oversight of the IT backbone for electoral rolls. In July, voter application Form 6 was altered to ask if applicants or their relatives existed in the last SIR roll, a change Joshi and Sandhu warned required government rule amendments. Sandhu later recorded on August 13 that this question was unauthorized and illegal, yet it remained on the form. The commissioners also challenged the restriction of local Electoral Registration Officers' access to the digital database ERONet and ECINet by IT Director General Seema Khanna. In West Bengal, SIR deletions exceeded victory margins in 49 seats, prompting the Supreme Court in February 2026 to transfer the final SIR phase to judicial officers. The Commission subsequently filed 16.10 lakh appeals against voters included by judicial officers, which Sandhu noted was done without informing him, Joshi, or the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer. In Goa, software limitations prevented local officers from restoring 97 voters deemed eligible following Supreme Court directives, after requests sent eight times to Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti went unanswered. Both commissioners repeatedly reminded officials that under the 2023 Act and Article 324, Commission business requires majority or unanimous decisions and cannot be issued without proper authorization.