SRINAGAR — Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Pawan Khera on Monday led a party protest in Srinagar against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, demanding his removal over the controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the additional declaration linked to Form 6.
The protest was part of a nationwide Congress campaign against the Election Commission’s handling of electoral-roll revision. Congress workers in Srinagar raised slogans demanding Kumar’s resignation, while party leaders carried placards during the demonstration.
Addressing reporters, Khera said the Congress was holding protests across the country and claimed that questions raised by the party were now supported by developments emerging from within the Election Commission.
He questioned the additional requirements associated with Form 6 and referred to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, arguing that the statutory framework could not be altered without following the prescribed legal procedure.
Khera questioned why the Form 6-related requirement had been changed and raised concerns over the process followed by the Election Commission.
He also alleged that the Bihar and West Bengal elections were illegal, linking his claim to the dispute surrounding Form 6 and the SIR process.
Khera demanded the removal of Gyanesh Kumar and said the Congress would continue its campaign until he left office.
“We will not budge till Kumar is ousted,” Khera said, while asserting that, in the Congress’s view, elections would not be fair as long as Kumar remained in office.
The Election Commission, however, has said that Form 6 itself has not been changed. It has said that an additional declaration, known as Annexure D, was introduced alongside the existing Form 6 under the SIR framework.
According to the Commission’s explanation, the additional declaration is required in specified SIR-related applications and supports the declarations made by applicants. The ECI has also said that the relevant SIR orders were approved unanimously by the three-member Commission.
The dispute over Form 6 has centred on whether the additional declaration amounts to a substantive change to the statutory form and whether such a change required amendment of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Those are among the issues raised by critics of the SIR process.
The ECI’s current voter-services portal continues to list Form 6 as the application for registration of new voters, alongside a separate declaration for the SIR process.
The Srinagar protest comes amid a broader political dispute over the Election Commission’s functioning and the 2026 SIR exercise, with the Congress demanding accountability and the poll panel defending the procedure adopted for electoral-roll revision.