ECI’s affidavit on SIR deceptive: Jairam Ramesh

New Delhi: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday sharply criticised the Election Commission of India’s affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, calling it deceptive, deceitful and duplicitous, and said it had severely damaged the poll body’s own credibility.

In a detailed statement, Ramesh alleged that the ECI had engaged in patent deception over the amendment of Form 6.

He said the Commission first claimed that a new declaration attached to Form 6 had been upheld by the Supreme Court, a claim the Court later contradicted.

The ECI subsequently maintained that the declaration was separate and that Form 6 itself had not been amended. Ramesh rejected this explanation, noting that Form 6 could not be submitted online without filling the mandatory declaration.

He also pointed to shifting stands; on 26 September 2026, the Commission described the declaration as attached to Form 6, but later asserted it was not part of the form.

According to him, this amounted to a clear violation of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Ramesh further accused the Commission of unilateral decision-making by the Chief Election Commissioner.

While the affidavit claimed that major Special Intensive Revision (SIR) orders had been formally approved by all three Election Commissioners, the two other Commissioners had objected on record to what they described as grave violations and illegal actions ordered by the CEC. Their objections were disregarded, and in some cases they learnt of the decisions only through news reports, he said.

The Congress leader also highlighted the use of the ECINET system to centralise control over electoral rolls and override Electoral Registration Officers, who are the statutory authorities.

He said the two Commissioners had placed their concerns on record, and evidence of EROs being overruled had emerged from several SIR states including Goa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Ramesh criticised the IT division of the Commission, alleging that it operated opaquely, overstepped its mandate and took unauthorised actions.

The two Commissioners had written to the Cabinet Secretary about these issues and about ECINET, yet no corrective action had been taken despite subsequent revelations.

He described the SIR exercise itself as a disaster marked by numerous illegalities, including the widespread misuse of Form 7 for mass deletions across states.

Ramesh noted that the ECI’s affidavit did not deny the veracity of media reports on these matters, which he said further confirmed gross malpractice and legal violations by the CEC.

Quoting the proverb “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” Ramesh concluded that prolonged deception eventually surfaces in a crooked style.

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