New Delhi : Terming the SIR a "Frankenstein which has created fear in the minds of voters", former chief election commissioner O P Rawat on Wednesday said changes to the statutory voter registration Form 6 are "absolutely wrong and illegal".
Another former CEC, S Y Quraishi, questioned whether elections could be held on electoral rolls prepared through a legally flawed revision exercise.
The two former CECs were reacting to a report in The Indian Express that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had repeatedly objected to decisions and orders issued without their knowledge during the Special Intensive Revision, including changes to Form 6 and centralisation of control over the electoral roll database.
The two commissioners recorded objections at least 14 times over the past 10 months, according to the report.
"This is an unfortunate situation. Such a thing has perhaps rarely happened in the Election Commission. I have also been there, but I saw that decisions were always taken unanimously," Rawat, who served as CEC in 2018, told PTI Videos.
"Through SIR, it has created a kind of Frankenstein which has created fear in the minds of voters everywhere. This is not good. It is very unfortunate for our democracy," he said.
According to the report, Joshi recorded in May that Form 6 could not be changed through instructions issued for the SIR and that the "legally sustainable" course was to amend the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Sandhu concurred with him.
However, a declaration linking new voter applications to the SIR was subsequently introduced in the online Form 6. In August, Sandhu recorded that the change was "unauthorised and illegal" and should be removed immediately, the report said.
