Overview
- Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh renewed the party's call on June 21 to elevate the right to vote from a statutory entitlement under the Representation of the People Act (1951) to a constitutionally protected fundamental right.
- Ramesh accused the Election Commission of India of 'blatantly partisan' conduct and said making voting fundamental would allow the Supreme Court greater oversight of the commission's actions.
- The demand was linked to allegations that Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercises in several states produced large-scale deletions and exclusions from electoral rolls, which Congress says risked disenfranchising voters.
- The party grounded its pitch in legal history and precedent, citing Constituent Assembly debates, a 2023 dissent by Justice Ajay Rastogi that favoured fundamental-right status for voting, and past Supreme Court rulings that have treated voting-related protections as fundamental.
- Changing voting from statutory to fundamental would likely require either a constitutional amendment or a decisive Supreme Court reinterpretation and so far there has been no recorded government, Election Commission, or judicial response to Congress's renewed demand.