SY Quraishi says deleted voters using Form 6 face jail, but Election Commission points to rules

Former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi has accused the Election Commission of India of abetting a crime by directing deleted voters to use Form 6 to get back onto the electoral rolls.

In a post on social media platform X, Quraishi claimed that Form 6 is designed strictly for brand-new voters registering for the first time. He warned that any deleted voter who has been forced to fill out the form has committed a criminal offence that carries a potential one-year prison sentence.

"EC officials who forced them are abetters to crime," Quraishi wrote, sharing an image of the commission's directive for a special enrolment drive. "This press note shows ECI's abetment!"

The legal counter-argument

Election Commission officials have contested Quraishi's claims, pointing to the formal legal framework that governs voter registration in India.

Commission sources cited Rule 13(1) and Rule 26 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, to defend their procedures. Rule 13(1) states that any claim to include a name in the electoral roll, which must be submitted within 30 days of the draft roll's publication, "shall be in Form 6" and signed by the applicant.

While the physical Form 6 is headed "application form for new voters", commission officials pointed out that the document itself explicitly directs applicants to the 1960 rules. An election officer said that requiring an elector deleted from the draft roll to use Form 6 to be added back is "strictly as per" these rules, noting also that the Supreme Court has previously upheld the revision process.

The broader voter registration drive

The clash comes amid an ongoing row over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Following a meeting of chief electoral officers, the Election Commission ordered a special drive to capture "left-out" electors in states and Union Territories where the revision process was complete.

Under this directive, Booth Level Officers were tasked with making house-to-house visits to ensure that any eligible first-time, young, or left-out voters filled out Form 6 to be included in the final register.

Quraishi has been a persistent critic of this entire revision exercise. He has previously argued that the intensive revision was entirely unnecessary, claiming India's voter rolls had already achieved 99 per cent accuracy. He credited this level of precision to a 30-year digitization effort that began during the tenure of former Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan. According to Quraishi, the only remaining issue with the rolls was a minor one-percent inaccuracy caused by the names of deceased voters not being removed quickly enough.