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New Delhi: Under intense fire over the rollout of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with protests on the streets demanding chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, the Election Commission’s affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on Monday (October 26) seeks to showcase unanimity. This follows revelations in the Indian Express‘s report last month that the two election commissioners, Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, had objected 14 times, after decisions had been taken, in just ten months after the exercise was initiated.

A close reading of the affidavit shows that the Election Commission has actually not denied any of the findings in the Indian Express‘s report.

While saying that a newspaper report is not treated as evidence in the eyes of law, it does not then dispute the findings of the report but instead says that the poll body has “neither released nor authorised the release of any internal note/file to any news agency”.

The Indian Express report had revealed that the two election commissioners had objected to the changes made to the online Form 6, with Sandhu calling them “illegal”. The affidavit, while stating that the Form 6 was not changed, admits that the declaration was “entered into the online page” of the form.

Further, while the Indian Express report had noted that 97 eligible electors were left out of the rolls in Goa after the centralised ECINet software stopped state election officials from reversing the decision, the Election Commission affidavit does not dispute this either. Instead it only says that 88 of these 97 voters have already re-applied through Form 6 for inclusion.

In the case of West Bengal, the report had revealed that appeals against the inclusion of voters cleared by judicial officers were filed by state election officials. This too has not been disputed, with the Election Commission instead saying in the affidavit that the “matters were not brought to the Commission”.

Two election commissioners’ objections and unilateral decisions by the CEC

While the three members of the Election Commission are meant to work through a majority failing unanimous decision-making, a point reinforced by the cabinet secretariat in file notings made available via RTI, the Indian Express had reported that the two election commissioners had objected 14 times in ten months to the conduct of the SIR, including in records and on file notings, that decisions were taken without their knowledge.

The Election Commission’s affidavit details........

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