Election Commission Row: What Is Form 6 And Why Has It Become A Point Of Contention?

The EC says there were 36 separate systems, ranging from spreadsheets to state-specific software. ERONET helped create a unified database.

Changes to Form 6 have emerged as a key point of contention in the Election Commission row over voter rolls.

Source : ANI

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Key points generated by AI, verified by newsroom

• India's centralized voter systems raise election official control concerns.
• ERONET manages voter rolls; ECINet integrates broader election services.
• Commissioners questioned centralization, citing software limits restoring voters.

The report of differences within the Election Commission over the SIR issue triggered a political storm on Wednesday. Opposition parties have stepped up their attack on the government and are demanding everything from Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation to his arrest. Meanwhile, the Election Commission has responded to reports of differences among the Election Commissioners, saying that differing views are a normal part of the process

Reason Behind Row

The Indian Express report claims that the Chief Election Commissioner took several major decisions by setting aside the advice and objections of the other two Election Commissioners. The four main points of contention were related to the enrolment of new voters and changes to electoral rolls. A new requirement was added to Form 6, used for new voter registration, asking applicants to provide details from the old electoral rolls of their parents or grandparents.

Although the question was described as “non-mandatory”, the form could not technically be submitted without answering it. The two Election Commissioners had objected to these changes and expressed their disagreement. They also raised serious questions over the process of adding and deleting names from electoral rolls and handling appeals in West Bengal and Goa.

ERONET And ECINet

Every time a person applies to become a voter, seeks a correction in the electoral roll or requests a change of address, the application eventually makes its way to ERONET, the Election Commission's centralised system for managing India's voter database.

ERONET, along with the EC's newer ECINet platform, has come into focus following a report in The Indian Express that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi raised concerns over the centralisation of the electoral-roll database and the degree of control available to election officials in states.

How Does ERONET Work?

Until ERONET was introduced, states used different applications and databases to manage their electoral rolls. The EC says there were 36 separate systems, ranging from spreadsheets to state-specific software. ERONET helped create a unified database.

The EC describes it as a centralised form-processing system for handling voter registration, migration and deletion, among other electoral-roll-related processes. It is designed as a unified system for electoral officials across states and Union Territories.

But ERONET is not supposed to decide by itself whether a person gets on or off the voter list.

Under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) is the statutory authority responsible for preparing and revising the electoral roll of an Assembly constituency. The EC itself describes ERONET as providing a decision-support system to EROs.

For instance, if the database detects two entries with similar names, ages and other particulars, it may flag them as possible duplicates. That does not automatically make either entry invalid. The records have to be examined and, where required, field verification carried out before a decision is taken.

Where Does ECINet Fit In?

Launched on January 22, 2026, ECINet brings together more than 40 applications and websites that the poll body had built over the years for voters, candidates, political parties and election officials.

For voters, these services range from registration and searching electoral rolls to tracking applications, downloading electronic voter identity cards and finding information about polling stations and candidates.

The electoral-roll functions earlier handled through ERONET have now been integrated into the ECINet platform. In official documents, the EC now refers to it as the Electoral Roll module of the ECINET Portal (previously ERONET).

In simple terms, ERONET was built specifically to manage electoral rolls, while ECINet is the larger platform into which those functions and several other election-related services have been integrated.

Why Are These Systems In The News?

The fact that electoral rolls are managed through a centralised digital system is not new. The questions now being raised relate to the extent of that centralisation and whether officials who are legally empowered to take decisions on electoral rolls have sufficient control over these systems.

The Indian Express investigation reported that Sandhu and Joshi had raised concerns over what was described as the gradual centralisation of the electoral-roll database and the access available to election officials in states.

One example cited in the report came from Goa. During the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), EROs heard cases involving voters who had been flagged for logical discrepancies. After examining their cases and documents, the EROs found 97 voters eligible for inclusion in the final electoral roll.

However, according to the report, the software did not provide an option to reverse the earlier action and restore their names. The Goa Chief Electoral Officer's office subsequently sought a rollback option from EC officials.

Election Commission Clarifies

Amid the growing controversy, the Election Commission issued a press release saying that discussions and differences of opinion on various issues within the Commission are a normal part of the democratic process. The Commission said that while there may have been differing views initially, all decisions that were ultimately implemented were taken with the consent of all three Election Commissioners and after being signed by them.