Priyank Kharge asks 'where is Gyanesh Kumar hiding' over dissent letters, flags bulk Form 7 forms, software

The argument follows a filing by the Election Commission in the Supreme Court on Monday. In a 15-point affidavit, the Commission said that three orders on the Special Intensive Revision were approved unanimously by all three members. A newspaper report on which a petition relies is said to claim that the two Election Commissioners objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions that, they said, had been issued without their knowledge or recommendation. The Commission's affidavit says that the orders were unanimous, and Kharge disputes that picture. Which version is accurate will depend on the documents, and the Supreme Court has not decided the question.

Forms 7 and 6

Kharge also spoke about Form 7, which is used to apply for the deletion of a name from the roll. He said that bulk, pre-printed Form 7 applications had been circulated, and that cases had already been registered, and he referred to Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, which deals with the making of false declarations in connection with the rolls. A report of his remarks also mentions concerns about Form 6, the form for inclusion, and about the system that the electoral registration officers use, called ERONET.

The Election Commission has told the Supreme Court that Form 6 has not been amended, since only the Centre can amend it, and that the declaration in the revision is a separate document. It has also admitted that the way the online application was displayed could be read as an amendment, and says that from 21 October the online application has been split into the form and the declaration, as in the physical form.

The software question

The reference to software ties in with another development. The Commission has declined, in reply to an application under the Right to Information Act, to name the software it uses, citing commercial confidence, and says that no new software has been developed or procured for the revision. Kharge's point is that voters have a right to know how decisions that remove names from the rolls are made.

Kharge spoke on the day that Karnataka's final electoral roll was published with about 4.55 crore voters, a fall of about 99 lakh from before the revision. His comment that the Chief Electoral Officer was about to release the roll was part of his remarks, and the Congress has said that it will protest against the revision on 1 November, in line with its national rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on that day.

Earlier this month, on 5 October, he had called for an independent, court-monitored technical audit of electronic voting machines and an ethical hackathon with independent experts, after the Commission challenged parties to demonstrate any weakness in the machines. The reports of Tuesday's remarks do not carry new statements on voting machines, though one headline attributed to him the line that regime change cannot happen when the Chief Election Commissioner and the machines are in the hands of one side.

The Commission's position, in its affidavit, is that the Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only as a Supreme Court judge can, that the orders were unanimous and that a petition based on a single newspaper report is not maintainable. It has not responded to Kharge's latest remarks in the reports available.

The exchange shows how the argument over the revision has moved from the question of numbers to the question of how the Commission itself works. The opposition says the Commission has lost its neutrality, and the Commission says that it acts within the law. For voters, the practical points remain the same: check your name in the roll, and apply for correction if it is wrong.