The Congress party has escalated its confrontation with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of knowingly violating the law and constitutional practice by unilaterally altering Form 6, the document used to register new voters, and calling on the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of the changes and hold him personally accountable. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on social media that Kumar’s continued presence in the post was an affront to the people of India and repeated Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s earlier demand that the commissioner resign. The dispute centres on modifications made to Form 6’s declaration requirements since the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls was carried out in Bihar, changes the opposition argues were introduced without adequate legal authority or transparency and that could affect how easily new voters, particularly those from marginalised communities, are able to register. The controversy has moved well beyond statements from party leaders: opposition parties across the country appear to be coordinating a fresh, unified push against Kumar, and protesters gathered at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and other parts of the capital demanding his removal and arrest, with roughly 90 people detained by police during the demonstrations.
In Jammu and Kashmir, Congress legislators disrupted assembly proceedings by holding up banners inside the chamber calling for Kumar’s resignation, extending the fight from the national capital into state legislatures. Kerala’s opposition leadership has separately called for Kumar’s removal and for a halt to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision process, while other opposition leaders have gone further still, describing the electoral roll changes as evidence of a rigged process and accusing senior government figures of betraying their constitutional duties. The Election Commission has not detailed a substantive response to the specific legal objections raised over Form 6, though it has previously defended the broader Special Intensive Revision exercise as necessary to clean up electoral rolls, and Ramesh’s post suggested Kumar could still redeem himself only by resigning and cooperating with any investigation as an approver rather than a defendant. Separate petitions are also reportedly pending before the Supreme Court seeking a formal SIT probe into Kumar’s conduct and an independent audit of the poll body’s databases, indicating the legal pressure on the commission is coming from multiple directions simultaneously rather than a single coordinated case.
The row over Form 6 adds a specific, document-level allegation to what had until now been a broader argument about the fairness of the SIR process, giving the opposition a narrower and more concrete legal hook to pursue in court even as the political temperature around the issue continues to rise nationally. With protests spreading from the streets of Delhi into state assemblies and multiple petitions stacking up before the Supreme Court, the standoff over the Election Commission’s independence has become one of the most contentious national political stories of the year, and its outcome could shape how future roll revisions are conducted well beyond the current controversy.