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New Delhi: After an investigation by The Indian Express on Wednesday (September 23) revealed that two of three election commissioners formally objected at least 14 times over 10 months to various decisions taken in the name of the Election Commission of India (ECI) without their knowledge, former election commissioners have come forward to question the reported malfunctioning of the poll panel and the legal procedures followed during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral polls.

As reported by The Wire earlier, former chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat described the reported revelations as “very serious” and “unfortunate”, particularly pointing to the changes to statutory voter-registration Form 6, saying they were “absolutely wrong and illegal”.

“This is an unfortunate situation. Such a thing has perhaps rarely happened in the Election Commission. I have also been there, but I saw that decisions were always taken unanimously,” he told PTI.

He also said that the SIR had created a “kind of Frankenstein” and stressed that software used for maintaining electoral rolls should not supersede decisions taken by officials. “Through SIR (Special Intensive Revision), it has created a kind of........

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