Former Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh has accused Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of violating the law in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls . In an open letter, the retired IAS officer also urged Opposition parties to boycott elections until the CEC and the Election Commissioners resign.
Mr.
Singh said the Supreme Court’s SIR judgment had besmirched its reputation and was “at par in infamy” with the judgment upholding the Emergency. He also said the delay in hearing the challenge to the law on selecting Election Commissioners was sending a bad message. “Let us unite to save our democracy,” he said.
The letter comes amid a row within the Election Commission of India (ECI), which is headed by Mr. Kumar and includes Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi as Commissioners . Kumar was repeatedly questioned in recent months by his two colleagues over the integrity of the voter database, changes to the way new voters are enrolled and the security of the electoral rolls. Sandhu and Mr. Mr. He also asked whether the decision was taken by the full Commission or by Mr. Kumar alone. He added that a centralised digital roll refusing additions on this ground goes against the law, which names the ERO as the only authority to add or delete names. Mr. Kumar would be futile as it lacks the numbers, and that it should file criminal cases instead. He also demanded that elections held in States while appeals were pending be set aside, and that polls be held by ballot rather than through EVMs.
Joshi objected to several decisions taken without their knowledge, and that they were kept in the dark at least 14 times in the past 10 months. Singh said Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, allows a special revision only in special cases, for reasons recorded in writing and only for a constituency or part of one. Excluding names where the gap between father and child was under 15 years, without an enquiry, was contrary to Section 21, he said. He said two Commissioners had pointed out that the ERO, the District Election Officer and the Chief Electoral Officer were not being allowed to access the voter list, and that 97 electors found valid by the ERO in Goa had still not been added to the roll.
An intensive revision for the whole country was therefore illegal, he said, adding that the Supreme Court order upholding the general SIR was wrong.
Mr, according to an Indian Express report. The report said Mr. On “logical discrepancy”, Mr. Singh said poor families often do not have birth certificates and give estimated years of birth. Singh said the Opposition’s plan to impeach Mr.
He called on all Opposition parties to jointly refuse to take part in elections until the CEC and the Election Commissioners resign, and until their successors are chosen by the earlier selection committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and a sitting Supreme Court judge.
He said 13 crore names had been deleted so far, which he put at 13% of voters, with the SIR still incomplete. The NDA-INDIA gap in 2024 was only 3%, he said, so the deletions would have a material impact on elections. He said a press note issued after the Commission’s meeting on September 26 confirms the illegalities he listed.
He suggested that centralisation could be used to cut voters from booths that vote against the NDA and asked: “Is this what happened?
