The Supreme Court’s Clarification, Internal Dissent Within The Poll Panel And The Opposition’s Street Mobilisation Have Together Created A Crisis That Cannot Be Dismissed As Routine Political Noise |
An election can survive a political defeat. An Election Commission can survive political criticism. What neither can easily survive is a sustained loss of public trust.
That is why the controversy over Form 6 is becoming far more consequential than a dispute over a piece of electoral paperwork. At its heart is a simple democratic question: who decides the conditions under which an eligible citizen gets onto the electoral roll, and under what authority?
The answer must never be clouded by ambiguity.
A Small Form, A Big Question: Form 6 controversy
During SIR, the online Form 6 was supplemented by a declaration asking new applicants to establish whether their own name, or that of a parent or grandparent, appeared in an earlier SIR electoral roll, with details such as the relevant constituency, polling station and serial number. This was particularly problematic for first-time voters and those whose names had been deleted during SIR. The Election Commission later removed the additional declaration in states and UTs where SIR had been completed and restored the statutory Form 6. The Supreme Court has now made it clear that it had not approved the modified Form 6 and has sought the records to establish who authorised the change.
Fallout: deletions, West Bengal and 22 states
The larger issue is the scale of the SIR deletions. More than 13 crore names were deleted from draft electoral rolls across the states and Union Territories covered by the exercise, according to figures reported during the controversy. In West Bengal, where the SIR exercise has generated particularly intense political and legal scrutiny, deleted voters have had to seek restoration through the claims-and-objections process. Thus, removing the extra Form 6 declaration is not equivalent to restoring deleted names; it merely removes an additional hurdle for subsequent enrolment. The real fallout across West Bengal and the other 22 states/UTs is whether genuine voters excluded during SIR can be efficiently restored before the electoral rolls are finally settled.
But constitutional questions cannot be settled by terminology.
If an additional requirement is imposed on a citizen seeking registration, the crucial issue is whether it has proper legal authority and whether it can make voter registration more difficult.
The controversy would probably have remained technical had the Supreme Court not now made a crucial clarification.
The BJP has rejected the Opposition's allegations and argues that the Supreme Court has not declared Form........