Obstacle race

Why in the News

Opposition parties, student groups and citizens protested in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere on Gandhi Jayanti, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. They charge that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), meant to “clean” electoral rolls, has become a serial disenfranchisement of lakhs of citizens.

What is the SIR, and how does it shift the burden onto voters?

1. What it is: The SIR is the Election Commission of India (ECI)‘s fresh, door-to-door re-verification of every elector. It is like making every member of a club re-apply for membership.
2. Nationwide expansion: After a Supreme Court verdict upheld the SIR, the ECI extended the Bihar method to every State and Union Territory (UT). It added an undefined “logical discrepancies” exclusion ground, first used in West Bengal.
3. Burden reversed: Electors must prove their eligibility, so many are deleted first and verified later. Deleted voters return only as fresh applicants in the claims phase, and only if they notice the deletion.
4. Easy deletion: Mass deletion requests are easy to file and quick to process. Getting back on the roll is onerous.
5. The takeaway: A process meant to purify the rolls now removes eligible voters first and leaves them to fight their way back.

How large have the deletions become?

1. Scale of removal: Nearly 13.4 crore electors have been removed from draft rolls, about 14% of the electorate before revision.
2. Rising each phase: Each phase has deleted more than the last, from 8.3% in Bihar to 17% in the third phase.

Which procedural changes are contested?

1. Dissent inside the ECI: Members of the Commission itself objected to procedural changes that are plainly illegal.
2. Form 6 altered: Form 6, the voter enrolment form, now asks whether the applicant, parents or grandparents were on the last SIR roll. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 were never amended.
3. West Bengal requests: 16.1 lakh requests were filed to delete electors whom judicial officers had already cleared.
4. Central database: A centralised roll database in New Delhi made such bulk requests possible.

How were the protests handled?

1. Delhi clampdown: The government refused permission, imposed prohibitory orders banning gatherings, shut the Internet near Jantar Mantar, closed 11 Metro stations and detained over 700 protesters.
2. Mumbai defiance: Police denied permission for a gathering at Shivaji Park, but protesters assembled anyway.

Is restoration enough, and who is accountable?

1. Implicit admission: The ECI has asked Booth Level Officers (BLOs), the field staff who verify electors, to restore deleted voters. This concedes that the process disenfranchised many.
2. Majority could act: Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi form the ECI’s majority and could have overruled the CEC.
3. Stake for democracy: As carried out, the SIR obstructs universal adult franchise, every adult citizen’s right to vote, and electoral democracy itself.

Challenges

1. Hearing before deletion: Deleting first denies due process. Eg. Lal Babu Hussein (1995) barred removal without notice and hearing.
2. Paperless electors: Migrants, the poor and women who moved after marriage struggle to produce documents tracing parents on old rolls.
3. Opaque criteria: “Logical discrepancies” has no published definition, so electors cannot know why they were struck off.
4. Weak collective check: A three-member Commission whose majority stays silent offers no internal correction.

Way Forward

1. Notice first: The ECI should issue individual notice and hold a hearing before any name leaves the roll.
2. Rules before forms: The Union Law Ministry should amend the 1960 Rules before any form changes.
3. Constituency data: Publish deletions by constituency and ground, so anomalies surface early.
4. Recorded decisions: The Commission should take SIR decisions by recorded vote of all three members.

Conclusion

A clean roll and an inclusive roll remain at odds, and the SIR has resolved that tension against the voter. How many deleted electors the BLO restoration drive actually returns before the final rolls will show whether the correction is real.

Key numbers

1. Second phase deletions: 12.9% of electors across 12 States and UTs.
2. SIR coverage so far: 30 States and UTs.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”