Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raised questions on Thursday about who within Tata Consultancy Services had the authority to approve modifications to the online Form 6 voter registration process, and sought to know what authorisation TCS had received from the Election Commission to carry out those changes — pointing to recorded objections from the EC's own Commissioners as evidence that the alterations had not been made through proper channels.

Via a post on X, Gandhi put forward two questions directed at accountability: which official within the Election Commission of India had sanctioned Tata Consultancy Services to carry out the change, and which TCS representative had granted it formal sign-off. He also posed the question of whether any external pressure had been placed on those involved to act as they did.

At the centre of the dispute is an additional declaration that was added to the web-based version of Form 6, hosted on the Election Commission's ECINET portal. Under the procedure, anyone registering to vote for the first time was required to demonstrate a family connection — through parents or grandparents — to electoral rolls compiled during a previous Special Intensive Revision.

Two election commissioners — Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi — raised formal opposition to the proposed change, arguing that Form 6 carries statutory standing and that any modification to it would require amendments to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Sandhu subsequently put forward a request that the supplementary declaration be struck out and the wording returned to its original state.

Following the conclusion of the Special Intensive Revision process in certain states, the supplementary declaration field tied to that exercise was removed from Form 6 by the Election Commission. Where the revision exercise is still ongoing, the notice continues to be hosted on the portal.

Jairam Ramesh, who serves as the Congress party's general secretary overseeing communications, contended that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had deliberately engineered the changes in question. No independent verification of that claim has been carried out.

Gandhi's statements form part of a broader push by Opposition parties to scrutinise how the Election Commission has been operating and to question the SIR process. Planned street marches across districts — five rallies among them — form part of a broader campaign the INDIA bloc has put forward, alongside a push for paper-based voting in future polls and a request to the Supreme Court to move faster on cases tied to the Special Intensive Revision process and questions of electoral irregularities.

Parliamentarians from the Opposition have scheduled a procession to the Election Commission on 6 October, with a separate engagement sought with President Droupadi Murmu to formally convey their party's objections over what they describe as irregularities in the voter roll revision process.

At the INDIA bloc gathering, opposition figures put the question of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar stepping down on the table, pledging to keep pressing the matter going forward.

Those events came after a report indicating that Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi had, on more than one occasion, put forward objections to decisions and orders tied to the SIR process. According to the document, the pair of commissioners had placed their objections on record no fewer than 14 times across a span of ten months.

Diverging viewpoints and internal observations, the Election Commission noted, form a routine part of any institution's deliberative process. The directives in question, it maintained, carry full backing under the law and comply with procedures set out in the relevant statutes.

Disputes over Form 6 have added another point of tension to the relationship between the Opposition and the Election Commission, a standoff that also encompasses disagreements about the SIR exercise, changes to the electoral roll, and how the ECINET system has been operating.