India's election commission orders review of voter-roll software after internal rift
India's election commission ordered a review of its voter-roll software on Saturday and scrapped mandatory in-person hearings, after reports that two commissioners questioned chief Gyanesh Kumar over voter-list changes.
India’s Election Commission on Saturday ordered an independent review of its voter-roll software, days after The Indian Express reported that the body’s chief had been questioned by his own deputies over changes to voter lists that excluded millions of voters.
A committee led by a senior deputy election commissioner and including an independent expert from an IIT or IIIT will review the ECINet portal to check it complies with election laws and rules, Hindustan Times reported. The review will be reported back to the full commission.
The Indian Express reported this week that two election commissioners had raised questions or expressed concerns to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at least 14 times in 10 months, mostly about the process of updating voter lists, according to Reuters. Opposition parties say the lists were manipulated to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party; the commission has said differences are normal in any institution and that all its actions were lawful.
Opposition parties and the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party have demanded Kumar’s resignation, with the CJP saying it would launch nationwide protests on October 2 if he had not quit by Saturday.
At a Saturday meeting at Nirvachan Sadan chaired by Kumar and attended by all three commissioners, the body also scrapped mandatory personal hearings: voters flagged during the Special Intensive Revision “for being unmapped and logical discrepancies” will instead receive home visits from Booth Level Officers, with documents uploaded to ECINet for the Electoral Registration Officer’s decision. Hearings will now happen only in exceptional circumstances, preferably online.
The commission extended claims-and-objections deadlines in Delhi to October 30, 2026, and in Maharashtra to October 12, and said the revision was already complete in 20 states and union territories, including Bihar and West Bengal.
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