Gujarat Congress flags mass Form 7 rejections, questions voter roll revision

The Gujarat unit of the Congress has accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission of acting in concert to undermine the electoral process, alleging large-scale irregularities in the handling of Form 7 objections during the ongoing revision of the state’s voter rolls.

Addressing a press conference in Ahmedabad on Thursday, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee president Amit Chavda described the situation as a “well-planned conspiracy” aimed at stripping lakhs of legitimate voters of their franchise.

Form 7 applications are used to object to the inclusion of names on the electoral roll. Chavda questioned what he said were inconsistent figures released by the Election Commission regarding the number of such objections received.

“At first, the commission stated that 12,59,229 Form 7 objections had been filed. Later, it said more than 9.5 lakh were received, and finally it announced that 1,83,235 objections had been submitted. Why are these numbers changing?” he asked.

According to Chavda, only a limited number of objections had been filed until 15 January, despite the 18 January deadline for challenging allegedly bogus voters. He suggested that the sudden surge in applications pointed to coordinated action rather than a spontaneous response.

The allegations come in the wake of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) draft electoral list published in December 2025, which, Chavda claimed, resulted in the deletion of around 74 lakh voters across Gujarat. He further alleged that in the Navsari Lok Sabha constituency alone, more than 12 per cent of voters in the state — approximately 62 lakh individuals — had been marked as suspicious.

Chavda also questioned how BJP workers allegedly obtained large numbers of pre-printed Form 7 applications and under whose authority they were delivered to the party’s Kamalam office in Gandhinagar. He demanded transparency over who submitted bundles of forms to election authorities and called for the release of CCTV footage from relevant offices.

“In some cases, individuals were unaware that objections had been filed in their names. There are reports of forged signatures and incorrect addresses,” he claimed.

Citing district-level data following the 10 February verification deadline, Chavda said that in Anand district 69,057 Form 7 applications were received but only 747 were accepted; in Kheda, 1,35,174 were received with 1,025 approved; and in Bharuch, 91,169 objections were filed but only 804 were upheld. He argued that these figures indicated that between 95 and 99 per cent of the applications had been rejected.

Describing the submission of false Form 7 applications as a criminal offence, Chavda called for action against those responsible, including election officials if any wrongdoing were established. He warned that the Congress would consider moving the Supreme Court to challenge what it described as an attempt to erode citizens’ electoral rights.

With IANS inputs