14 Times in 10 Months: Two Election Commissioners Objected on Record to Poll Panel Steps
India’s Election Commission is facing an unusual internal controversy after an investigation by The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally recorded objections at least 14 times over a 10-month period to decisions and orders issued in the name of the poll panel. Four of those objections were reportedly made on a single day.
The objections reportedly concerned some of the most sensitive functions of the Election Commission: addition of voters, deletion and restoration of names from electoral rolls, appeals against electoral-roll decisions, changes to voter-registration procedures and the management of the electoral-roll database. The objections were copied to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The controversy is particularly significant because the three-member Commission has been overseeing the nationwide Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, of electoral rolls. The exercise began in Bihar in June 2025 and was subsequently expanded to other states and Union Territories. The Indian Express reported that more than 13 crore names had been struck from draft rolls across 30 States and Union Territories during the process.
At the heart of the reported disagreements is the question of whether important decisions were being taken with the knowledge and approval of all three members of the constitutional body. Sandhu and Joshi, according to the investigation, repeatedly said certain orders or changes had been issued without their knowledge or approval.
One major dispute involved Form 6, the statutory form used by people seeking registration as voters. Joshi reportedly recorded in May that the form could not be changed in the manner proposed without an amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Sandhu subsequently agreed with that objection.
A new question was nevertheless introduced into the digital registration process. It asked applicants whether they, or their parents or grandparents, appeared in the electoral roll from the previous SIR. Sandhu later described the change as “unauthorised and illegal” and called for its removal, according to the investigation.
Another major concern involved access to the electoral-roll database. Joshi reportedly warned about what he called the “gradual centralisation” of the database in Delhi and proposed an audit to ensure that only the legally authorised election officials could alter voter information.
Sandhu subsequently raised similar concerns, saying state-level election officials were reporting that they did not have proper and complete access to ERONet, the digital system used for electoral-roll management. He also questioned the authority of the Election Commission’s IT division to restrict access available to statutory officials.
The issue went beyond internal correspondence. In a significant development, Sandhu and Joshi separately wrote to the Cabinet Secretary over changes in the allocation of work relating to the IT infrastructure handling electoral rolls. They objected that the changes had been made without their knowledge and raised concerns about oversight of the system.
West Bengal’s electoral-roll process generated another disagreement. Sandhu reportedly questioned the filing of appeals against voters whom judicial officers had included in the electoral roll during the SIR process. He asked who had authorised the appeals and who had actually filed them, saying neither he, Joshi nor the state’s Chief Electoral Officer had been informed about the basis or process.
The investigation also highlighted an episode in Goa involving 97 voters. Electoral Registration Officers reportedly determined that the 97 voters were eligible after examining documents, but the software lacked the functionality needed to record the reversal of their earlier deletion. Requests to enable the required rollback facility were reportedly made repeatedly before the final electoral roll was published.
The dispute raises an important institutional question because the Election Commission is not legally structured as a body in which the CEC simply decides everything. Article 324 establishes the Commission, while Section 18 of the 2023 law says its business should, as far as possible, be conducted unanimously. Where the members disagree, the law provides for a majority decision.
The Election Commission, meanwhile, has rejected the suggestion that the reported objections invalidate its decisions. In a clarification issued after the report, the Commission said that its decisions on SIR were unanimous and had the approval of the CEC and both Election Commissioners. It also said that concerns raised internally did not alter the Commission’s final decisions.
That distinction is crucial. A written objection by an Election Commissioner demonstrates that a disagreement was recorded, but it does not by itself establish that the final decision was unlawful or that the Commission acted without the required authority. The Election Commission’s position is that the final decisions, including SIR decisions, were unanimously approved.
At the same time, the reported correspondence raises questions about transparency and internal decision-making. If two of three commissioners repeatedly objected to operational decisions involving voter registration, deletions and electoral data, the precise relationship between those objections and subsequent formal decisions becomes an important matter for public and legal scrutiny.
The controversy also comes after months of political and legal disputes over SIR. Opposition parties have criticised the exercise over concerns about the possible exclusion of legitimate voters, while the Election Commission has maintained that the revision is intended to clean electoral rolls and identify ineligible, duplicate or otherwise problematic entries.
The reported internal disagreement is therefore not simply a dispute between three officials. It touches the administration of voter registration, the security and control of electoral data, the statutory powers of ground-level election officers and the institutional procedures through which India’s elections are administered.
For now, the competing accounts remain clear: Sandhu and Joshi are reported to have placed repeated objections on record, while the Election Commission maintains that its final decisions were properly approved and unanimous. The significance of the 14 objections will ultimately depend on the underlying official records, the Commission’s formal decisions and, where applicable, judicial findings.
