Full Breakdown
ECINET Code Enables State-Specific Blocking of Election Officers, Audit Finds
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event
A third-party audit by the civic-tech initiative Charchagram uncovered code in the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) unified portal ECINET that can disable access to the “View Enumeration Form Details” tile and the notice-and-hearing dashboard for Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant EROs (AEROs) only in West Bengal. The restriction is implemented through a hard-coded check that excludes the state from the general tile, effectively preventing those officers from reviewing voters’ enumeration forms.
Background and Technical Findings
ECINET, launched in January 2026, consolidates multiple election-related applications under a single login. The audit examined the front-end JavaScript bundle served publicly, which loads before any official login. Data scientist Saurav Rajput identified the West Bengal exclusion in code fetched as recently as October 19 and noted that the current build containing the rule was introduced on October 16. Rajput first observed the feature on September 28. Because the review was limited to publicly served code, the audit could not verify whether server-side enforcement exists or whether the rule has ever been activated.
Official Statements and Political Reactions
The Congress party alleged political motivation behind ECINET’s design, stating:
> “It is by now well-established how [CEC] Gyanesh Kumar, at the instance and instructions of the PM (Narendra Modi) and the HM (Amit Shah), put in place ECINET to centralise all manipulations of the election process.” — Congress party
Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi have previously raised objections to the centralisation of ECINET and its electoral-roll database. The ECI declined to comment when approached for clarification.
Data, Statistics, and Timeline
- 2.71 million voters were reported as disenfranchised during the intensive revision exercise in West Bengal.
- September 28 – Rajput first located the state-specific restriction in the code.
- October 16 – The build containing the restriction was released.
- October 19 – The feature was still present in the publicly fetched code.
- November 4 – The intensive revision exercise is scheduled to begin.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
This discrepancy highlights uncertainty about whether the West Bengal restriction has already been applied in practice. Additionally, the audit could not determine server-side enforcement or historical usage of the rule.
Verbatim Quotes
- “The ‘View Enumeration Form Details’ is a general tile available to SIR Phase II landing page,” — Saurav Rajput, charchagram data scientist
- “Server-side enforcement isn’t visible to us,” — Saurav Rajput, charchagram data scientist