Gyanesh Kumar’s ECINET promise vs ECI’s own paper trail: The disconnect
The story examines the contradictions between the ECI’s public claims and internal notes on voter-roll access, software controls, Form 6 and the handling of decisions.
by Tarique Anwar · Zee NewsNew Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar gave ECINET a clear description when the Election Commission launched the platform in January this year. He said it had been developed in “strict accordance with the law” and presented it as a single digital platform for election-related information and services. The platform was envisaged by him along with Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
The internal record shows that the commission had raised questions about who controlled the electoral-roll database. Sandhu and Joshi later recorded objections over access to voter records and the role of the commission’s IT system in decisions that are legally assigned to statutory election officials. The Indian Express reported 14 written objections from the two commissioners over 10 months.
That timeline puts Kumar’s stewardship of the commission under a different lens. The issue is not simply that two election commissioners disagreed with some decisions. It is also about how issues raised inside the three-member constitutional body were handled before and after the Commission moved towards a more centralised digital system.
What Kumar said about ECINET
The ECI launched ECINET on January 22 at the India International Conference on Democracy and Election Management in New Delhi. A press statement issued by the government said that the platform was envisaged by Kumar, Sandhu and Joshi. It brought more than 40 election-related applications and portals under one digital platform.
The chief election commissioner claimed at the launch of the commisson’s online system that it had been developed in “strict accordance with the law”. He also described the platform as a step towards easier access to election services and information.
Objections raised later brought up a basic question about the electoral rolls – who had the authority to make changes to voter records?
Under the election system, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have statutory responsibility for preparing and maintaining electoral rolls in their constituencies. The two election commissioners (Joshi and Sandhu) questioned whether the digital system was allowing those officers to exercise their legal powers without restrictions.
The warnings about the voter database
In May, Joshi raised what he described as “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database”. He proposed an audit to establish that only the statutory authorities concerned had credentials to make changes to voter data.
Sandhu raised a similar issue in August. He wrote that state-level officials had reported that they did not have “proper and complete access” to ERONet, the system used for electoral-roll work. He also questioned the legal authority of the ECI’s Director General of IT Seema Khanna to restrict the access given to statutory officers.
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The objections also relate to how the ECI has traditionally prepared voter lists. Electoral rolls are prepared at the constituency level by local election officials. The ERO is the statutory authority at the constituency level. A digital system can support that authority, but questions arise when access to that system becomes part of the decision-making chain.
The issue goes beyond the software. It is about who could make changes, who could approve them and whether the officer responsible for the electoral roll had full access to the system.
Form 6 exposed another problem
The dispute over Form 6 provides another example. It is used by people applying to become voters. In July, the online version began asking new applicants whether they, their parents or their grandparents existed in the electoral roll from the last SIR.
Joshi had objected in May to the changes made. He said the form could not be changed in that manner without an amendment to the rules. Sandhu agreed with him.
The change was introduced anyway. Accordig to The Indian Express, he wrote on August 13 that the change was “unauthorised and illegal” and said it “must be removed immediately”. The question was still present on the portal until Monday morning.
This leaves an administrative question – if two members of the three-member commission had objected before the change was introduced, who approved the change and when that approval was given.
The ECI has said that differing views and operational inputs are part of normal internal deliberations. It has also said that all decisions taken over the past year, including those related to SIR, were unanimous.
That explanation provides one side of the record. The written objections provide the other.
The unanswered part of the ECI's defence
The Commission’s response does not dispute the existence of the 14 notes, their dates or their contents. It says these inputs were considered before final decisions were taken.
That makes the documentary trail particularly important.
If a written objection is raised before an action is taken, the next question is what happened to that objection. Was it accepted? Was it rejected? Was the issue discussed by all three commissioners? Was a majority decision recorded? Or was the administrative action changed before implementation?
Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, says business of the commission should, as far as possible, be transacted unanimously. If the three differ, the matter is to be decided by the majority.
Sandhu and Joshi themselves invoked these provisions in communications to commission officials. The former wrote in April that communications were being issued in the name of the ECI without the approval of “the Commission”. The latter made a similar point eight days later.
This is where Kumar's role becomes relevant without assuming that he personally authorised every disputed action. As the CEC, he heads the three-member commission. The ECI's defence said that the final decisions were unanimous. The record shows that the two commissioners had repeatedly raised objections before or during the process.
The missing link is the decision trail between the two.
Bengal exposes another fault line
The same issue surfaced in West Bengal, where Sandhu questioned appeals filed against voters whom judicial officers had decided to retain on the electoral roll.
He asked who had authorised those appeals and who had filed them on behalf of the ECI. He also said that neither he nor Joshi nor the then chief electoral officer of West Bengal had been informed about the basis or process.
The commission subsequently told the apex court that 38 lakh appeals were pending before tribunals. That included 22.21 lakh appeals by deleted voters seeking restoration and 16.10 lakh appeals seeking deletion of voters whose names had been retained by judicial officers.
The issue is how the commission deals with disagreements between its three members. The law sets out how the three commissioners must take decisions when they have different views.
Kumar now faces a difficult part of the record to explain. He had earlier said that the ECINET was developed in accordance with the law. The commission now says its final decisions were unanimous. The written notes show that two commissioners repeatedly questioned how voter data, statutory powers and administrative decisions were being handled.
The next part of the story is therefore contained in the paperwork between those positions – which objections were accepted, which were rejected, who took the final decision and where that decision was recorded.
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