Election Commission Rift Over SIR? What The 14 Objections Reveal

The Election Commission is facing fresh scrutiny after an Indian Express investigation reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months. Their concerns included changes to Form 6, centralisation of electoral-roll data, software and IT access, work allocation and appeals in the SIR process. The ECI has said differing views are a normal part of institutional deliberation and maintained that decisions taken over the past year were unanimous. Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa also discussed why the reported communications may not technically amount to "dissent" unless they reflected differences recorded in Commission meetings.