Election Commission removes extra Form 6 declaration in non-SIR States

The Election Commission has restored online submission of Form 6 without an attached declaration in States where the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is not currently under way. Form 6 is normally used to apply for fresh voter registration. During the revision process, it has also been used to re-enrol people whose names were deleted during enumeration.

A separate declaration had been added to the physical form for applicants to provide details linking themselves or their parents to electoral rolls from an earlier revision. Online applicants had been unable to submit Form 6 without completing that declaration. The Hindu reported that the Election Commission removed the fields seeking parents’ and grandparents’ details from the online form on September 29.

The declaration was placed in a separate category to be completed only by applicants in States where the special revision remains in progress. The change followed concerns reportedly raised in separate notes and letters by Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu in May and August 2026. The Commission said on September 26 that the declaration would be used only during the revision period.

Commission officials said Form 6 itself had not been amended. They described the declaration as an additional document introduced alongside the form after the revision began in Bihar and was later ratified for subsequent phases. Officials attributed the online submission problem to changes made by the information-technology department.

Those changes were intended to prevent applicants from having to sign electronically twice, but meant that the declaration had to be completed before the form could be submitted. The officials also said the power to add the declaration had been upheld by the Supreme Court on May 27, 2026. The source material does not provide details of any further court proceedings.