'Changed illegally and unilaterally': Rahul Gandhi accuses CEC Gyanesh Kumar over Form 6

New Delhi, Oct 5 — Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of changing Form 6 — the application form through which citizens register as new voters — "illegally and unilaterally", and vowed that everyone involved in what he called a "criminal assault on our democracy" would be held accountable. "It is now established beyond doubt that Gyanesh Kumar changed Form 6 illegally and unilaterally. This is just one more proof of him abusing his position to help the BJP," Gandhi wrote in a social media post on Sunday. The charge landed within hours of the Supreme Court observing that it had never approved modifications made to Form 6 — a remark that pulled the rug from under the Election Commission's long-standing claim of judicial backing for the revised form used during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Form 6 is the statutory form through which a citizen applies to be included in the electoral roll under the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Any alteration to its prescribed format is expected to follow a rule-bound, consultative process — which is why Gandhi's allegation of unilateral change strikes at the procedural heart of voter registration itself. Gandhi's post is the latest escalation in a crisis that has been building for weeks. On September 24, he demanded Kumar's resignation at a press conference, a day after The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over ten months to decisions on the SIR, Form 6, voter-roll additions and deletions, and centralised control of voter data. Gandhi said then that there was "100 per cent certainty" that elections since 2024 had been rigged. The Election Commission pushed back the same day. In a point-by-point clarification issued alongside Gandhi's post, the poll panel said the SIR order of June 24, 2025 was issued with the unanimous approval of the Commission and had been upheld by the Supreme Court in its judgment of May 27, 2026. Citing its September 26 press note, it added that the declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR had been upheld by the court, and that for non-SIR periods the forms prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 would apply. The question the Supreme Court's observation opened remains unanswered: if the court never approved the modification, who changed Form 6, and on whose authority? The Opposition is moving to a formal constitutional remedy — Congress sources told the ANI news agency that parties plan to give an impeachment-motion notice against Kumar in both Houses of Parliament within two weeks. With Bihar's SIR under way and assembly polls approaching, the referee's credibility is now the election's central issue. The court, the Commission and the Opposition are telling three different stories about the same piece of paper — and the voter is left to decide whom to believe.