Tribunals in West Bengal are struggling to handle the caseload thrown up by the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, and every State running the exercise is reporting rising numbers of electors marked “absent”, “shifted”, “dead” and “duplicate”. The Supreme Court settled the legal question in Association for Democratic Reforms and Others v. Election Commission of India and Others (May 2026). That ruling upheld the Election Commission of India’s power to conduct the revision. It also recorded the Court’s satisfaction with the procedure the Commission adopted, holding the deletions to be within the parameters of that procedure. The contest is now over whether a constitutional court that declines to scrutinise an electoral authority is protecting institutional autonomy or removing the only check available to an elector who has been struck off.
What is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls?
A house to house verification, not a paper update: SIR is a time bound enumeration of the whole roll. Booth Level Officers physically visit every household to verify each entry on it.
It differs from the routine revision: The annual Summary Revision works off claims and objections filed by electors. SIR re-verifies every single existing entry.
Its stated objects: It removes deceased, duplicate and permanently shifted entries, registers newly eligible electors, and extends high security Electors Photo Identity Cards to full coverage.
It is periodic, not novel: Intensive revisions were first run between 1952 and 1956, and India has conducted roughly fourteen such exercises, including those of 1983, 1995, 2002 and 2004.
What did the Court actually hold in the SIR case?
The power was affirmed: The judgment upholds the Commission’s authority to conduct an intensive revision of the rolls.
The procedure was endorsed: The Court recorded its satisfaction with the procedure the Commission adopted, rather than testing that procedure against outcomes.
The deletions were validated collectively: Deletions were held to fall within the parameters of the approved procedure, which forecloses an individual challenge on the ground that the procedure itself is defective.
Which of the two available approaches did the Court choose?
The first option was structured suspicion: The Court could have adopted scepticism towards the Commission’s claims of authority, on the view that judicial vigilance is needed to hold the balance between asserted state power and citizens’ rights.
The second option was institutional trust: It could instead repose trust in another constitutional authority, on the assumption that constitutional institutions are themselves sufficiently committed to protecting citizens’ rights, making intensive scrutiny unnecessary.
It took the second: The judgment rests on the premise that a constitutional body does not need to be watched, which is precisely the premise a rights challenge exists to test.
Rights are lost by practice, not only by intent: An authority can undermine citizens’ rights without any explicit intention to do so, simply through unreasonable practices applied at scale.
Trust tests motive, scrutiny tests effect: A court satisfied that a body means well never reaches the question of what the body’s method actually produces on the ground.
The error is not isolated: It sits inside a broader contemporary judicial tendency that increasingly privileges “authority” over the citizen asserting a right against it.
How does the ruling fail the principle of representation?
Representation was the missing anchor: The judgment is not anchored in the foundational principle underlying the controversy, which is representation, so the logic of representation did not inform how the Commission’s authority was read.
Inclusion is now a defining requirement of citizenship: As democracy has evolved and the idea of citizenship has expanded, full inclusion has become one of its central requirements.
The requirement runs in two directions: Citizenship must not be denied or diminished on grounds such as sex, religion, race, caste or class, and political representation is not meaningful if citizens are effectively disabled from participating in elections as voters.
The arithmetic follows: Leaving eligible electors out of an election inevitably produces flawed representation, whatever the quality of the procedure that excluded them.
Can a power to purify the rolls be exercised without becoming a power to exclude?
The power was accepted without its limit: Having accepted that the Commission may prepare rolls and examine whether a person is genuinely entitled to be on them, the Court did not ensure that this power of scrutiny stops short of excluding or harassing eligible voters.
The default duty runs the other way: In a democratic election the Commission’s first responsibility is to include, not to exclude, and a verification drive inverts that default by design.
The Commission was not seized of inclusion: Nothing in the record shows the Commission asking whether its verification drive keeps eligible electors on the roll.
The instrument turns on its purpose: Without a stated inclusion duty, the revision becomes a hatchet rather than a purifying procedure.
Who bears the cost of a documentation based test of eligibility?
Exclusion is not random in practice: The state’s exclusion operates randomly as a general rule, but a documentation regime used as evidence of citizenship does not fall evenly.
The exposed groups are identifiable in advance: Vast numbers of women, the poor and the marginalised are particularly vulnerable to being trapped by such regimes, both as a matter of theory and as an empirical reality.
The democratic cost is the endpoint: A disproportionate exclusion of these groups undermines democratic representation itself, not merely the individual entitlements of those removed.
What happens to a citizen after the name is deleted?
The verdict routes deletions to the executive: It directs the Commission to report to the Home Ministry the names of persons whose entries have been deleted, for further adjudication of their claims.
The exercise acquires a second use: That direction allows the Commission and the government to weaponise the revision, pushing individuals into a zone of doubt, suspicion and harassment.
A cautious judgment produced an expansive institution: A ruling anxious not to enter the Commission’s domain has obliquely enabled the Commission to transcend that domain and become enmeshed with executive authority.
The consequences run past the vote: The exercise may end by creating a class of shifted, absent and duplicate persons pushed to the margins of formal existence, with passports and claims to welfare schemes also cast into doubt.
Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision
Booth level staff are set impossible targets: Verification of every entry within a compressed window is loaded onto officers who already hold full time teaching or clerical posts. Eg. Booth Level Officers in West Bengal reported acute duty stress during the current cycle, including cases of suicide. Fix. Cap the number of entries assigned per officer per day and pay a separate verification honorarium tied to that cap.
Legacy document requirements exclude the undocumented: Asking for a birth certificate or an ancestral roll entry disqualifies people whose births were never registered. Eg. Civil registration of births was far from universal in the birth cohorts now in their fifties and sixties. Fix. Accept a widened evidence set including electricity bills, ration cards and community certificates, with a declaration by the Booth Level Officer as a residual proof.
Grievance redress does not keep pace with deletions: Claims and objections pile up faster than hearing officers can dispose of them, so the roll freezes with the disputes unresolved. Eg. Only a fraction of the roughly six million claims filed in West Bengal were disposed of before the poll freeze. Fix. Constitute standing appellate tribunals for electoral rolls that sit year round rather than temporary benches raised at revision time.
Field marking is subjective: A single officer decides on one visit whether an elector is “shifted” or “absent”, with no second visit and no corroboration requirement. Eg. Households locked at the time of a daytime visit are routinely marked absent. Fix. Mandate geotagged evidence of at least two visits at different times of day before any absence marking is recorded.
Manual capture introduces avoidable error: Offline field data is later keyed into the database by hand, so transcription mistakes enter the roll after verification has finished. Eg. Name and age mismatches between the field form and the uploaded entry are a recurring source of objections. Fix. Issue tablets with offline forms that sync directly, removing the separate data entry step.
Fear of a citizenship screen suppresses cooperation: Residents who read the exercise as a covert citizenship test refuse to produce documents, which raises the very deletion risk they fear. Eg. Households in border districts have declined to hand over papers during roll verification. Fix. Print on the enumeration form itself that the exercise determines electoral registration only and creates no finding on nationality.
Conclusion
The exclusions now surfacing across States are not an administrative accident sitting downstream of a sound legal position. They follow from the judicial choice set out above, and from the direction routing deleted names to the executive for further adjudication. What remains unresolved is whether a court will accept that a power to verify carries a matching duty to include, because until it does, the elector who is struck off has a procedure to follow and no forum that will ask whether the procedure was reasonable.
“[2024, GS2, 10 marks] Examine the need for electoral reforms as suggested by various committees with particular reference to “one nation-one election” principle.”
The United States President’s appreciation of India’s election mechanism, and his social media post citing India’s Chief Election Commissioner on how the United States conducts elections without a valid photo identity, has put election integrity in both democracies under simultaneous scrutiny. Both political systems agree that rolls should be clean and voting should be verified, and disagree completely on who the requirement is meant to exclude.
What is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls?
Definition:Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a comprehensive, time bound house to house verification drive involving fresh enumeration forms for all voters, door to door verification by Booth Level Officers, document verification of citizenship, deletion of ineligible entries and inclusion of omitted voters.
How it differs from the routine exercise:Summary Revision is the routine annual update of additions, deletions and corrections carried out before general, Assembly and bye elections, with a qualifying date typically of 1 January.
When it is triggered: SIR is exceptional and is triggered only when rolls have remained largely unchanged for years or when large scale irregularities are suspected.
Statutory basis: Electoral rolls are prepared and maintained by the Election Commission of India under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, with intensive revision mandated under Sections 22 and 23 of that Act.
What is the current status of electoral roll revision in India?
Frequency in history: Intensive revisions have been carried out only 13 times in India’s history, in 1952, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1966, 1983-84, 1987-89, 1992, 1993, 1995, 2002, 2003 and 2004.
The current exercise: The Election Commission launched a nationwide SIR 2.0 from 4 November 2025, the first in 21 years, covering 9 States and 3 Union Territories and targeting approximately 51 crore voter records.
Method used: The exercise uses artificial intelligence driven duplicate detection and facial and identity match algorithms alongside field verification.
The officer chain: The Chief Electoral Officer at State level, the District Election Officer at district level, the Electoral Registration Officer at constituency level and Booth Level Officers at polling booth level carry out the work.
The immediately preceding exercise: The January 2025 Special Summary Revision was completed with no issues raised before the Bihar SIR was announced.
The presumption cutoff: The exercise uses 2003 as the citizenship presumption cutoff, which effectively re verifies every voter added between 2003 and 2025.
Constitutional Provisions Related to Elections and Electoral Rolls
Article 324: Establishes the Election Commission of India and vests in it the superintendence, direction and control of elections to Parliament, State Legislatures and the offices of President and Vice President.
Article 325: Guarantees that no person shall be ineligible for inclusion in, or claim to be included in, a special electoral roll on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex.
Article 326: Provides that elections to the House of the People and State Legislative Assemblies shall be on the basis of adult suffrage, so every citizen not disqualified by a specific legal exception may vote.
Articles 327 and 328: Authorise Parliament and State Legislatures respectively to make laws on all election related matters, including electoral rolls and delimitation of constituencies.
Article 329: Bars courts from questioning laws relating to delimitation of constituencies, making Delimitation Commission orders final and non justiciable.
Part XV: Articles 324 to 329 together constitute the electoral provisions of the Constitution, and they are the source of the Election Commission’s status as a constitutional body.
Why has election integrity become contested in both democracies at the same time?
Partisan mistrust as the common driver: Partisan politics in both countries has fostered political mistrust, which leads election losers to repeatedly question electoral integrity.
Both sides want purification, in opposite directions: The liberal and progressive strands and the conservative and nativist strands in both countries want to purify and streamline electoral rolls and processes, in different and often contradictory ways.
The ruling side’s claim: Ruling dispensations in both countries hold that the election process is too permissive and allows foreigners to obtain voting rights.
The opposition’s claim: Their opponents point to systematic and premeditated efforts to target social groups in the name of election integrity.
The point of agreement is narrow: No one disagrees that the process should be fair and transparent, and the agreement ends there.
The shared opportunity: India and the United States could lead a shared democratic agenda on election rules, but only after restoring trust and integrity in their own electoral processes.
How do the American and Indian election administration systems differ?
United States, a decentralised and federalised process: The American electoral process is highly federalised and governed by fragmented rules and politics that resist the idea of a nationwide SIR type exercise.
United States, the constitutional allocation: The Constitution grants each State its own methods, subject to the qualification that Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations.
United States, the pending federal law: The expanded Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act was passed in February and is pending in the Senate, and would require proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo identity for voting.
United States, the gap identified: The decentralised system leaves too many loopholes in the process of enrolment and voting, and could benefit from a more robust national framework of the kind the Election Commission of India provides.
India, a constitutional election authority: The Indian Constitution establishes the Election Commission as a constitutional body, unlike the American arrangement of State by State methods.
India, a nationalised administration under strain: India’s nationalised election administration system has largely worked well and now faces a crisis of legitimacy.
The common legal position: There is no ambiguity in existing law in either country that only citizens may register and vote, and the controversy is entirely about the process of ensuring this.
Why can a legitimate requirement of clean rolls still damage trust?
The requirement itself is elementary: Clean electoral rolls of citizens, and voting with photo identity, are elementary requirements of a fair process, and neither is objectionable in principle.
The manner of introduction is the objection: In India the SIR is introducing the citizenship proof requirement without transparency, adequate consultation or sufficient time.
Frequency argues for care, not speed: SIR is meant to be conducted only once in 20 years, which is precisely why it should be carried out carefully and inclusively.
The same rule can serve two purposes: A requirement designed to exclude non citizens can equally be used to exclude citizens who lack the documents, and the two outcomes are indistinguishable in the roll.
The standard both countries must meet: In both countries the state must not selectively weaponise these requirements against those not in power.
Major debates surrounding electoral roll revision in India
Bihar, the scale of deletion: A 47 lakh net reduction in the final roll, with 3.66 lakh removed in the last phase after draft publication, and allegations of large scale deletions in four border districts ahead of State elections.
Bihar, the process failure: Booth Level Officers collected forms without acknowledgement slips, and contradictory deadlines of 25 July and 31 August caused mass confusion.
West Bengal, the notice requirement: Large scale deletions were alleged, with Rule 18 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which requires individual notice before deletion, alleged to have been violated, and petitions filed in the Calcutta High Court against a contesting Commission affidavit.
Uttar Pradesh, the quality of verification: Concerns were raised over disproportionate deletions in minority heavy constituencies, with field verification by Booth Level Officers reported as cursory and forms collected in bulk.
Migrant voters: Multiple States including Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Assam reported that migrant workers away from their registered constituencies were deleted without notice.
Timing without a stated trigger: The SIR was announced within six months of a clean January 2025 summary revision with no new justification offered.
Feasibility of the timeline: The Commission’s own Assam National Register of Citizens experience shows that verification of this kind cannot be completed within the 90 days allotted.
Challenges to a credible electoral roll revision
Burden of proof falls on the voter: An intensive revision requires the voter to establish eligibility rather than requiring the state to establish ineligibility. e.g. the 2003 presumption cutoff placing the documentary burden on everyone enrolled between 2003 and 2025.
Migrant and mobile populations are structurally exposed: Voters absent from their registered address during door to door verification are recorded as untraceable and deleted. e.g. migrant workers in Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Assam reported as deleted without notice.
Notice requirements are unevenly observed: Deletion without individual notice removes the only opportunity to contest an error before publication. e.g. the alleged violation of Rule 18 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 in West Bengal.
Field capacity does not match the timeline: Booth Level Officers carry the entire verification load within a compressed window, and shortcuts follow. e.g. forms collected in bulk without acknowledgement slips in Bihar and cursory verification reported in Uttar Pradesh.
Algorithmic deduplication carries error: Facial and identity match algorithms produce false positives that are removed before any human confirms the match. e.g. SIR 2.0 applying artificial intelligence driven duplicate detection across approximately 51 crore records.
Contradictory administrative communication: Multiple deadlines and changing instructions destroy the voter’s ability to comply. e.g. the 25 July and 31 August deadlines issued in Bihar.
Verification errors survive to the draft roll: Voters who submitted forms still appear in the deleted category, which shifts the burden to a post publication correction process. e.g. voters in Telangana finding their names listed under permanently shifted or dead in the recently released draft roll despite having filed forms.
Conclusion
Clean electoral rolls of citizens and voting with photo identity are elementary requirements of a fair process, and the disagreement in both India and the United States is about who the requirement is applied to and how. India’s nationalised system offers the national framework the American process lacks, and it is that system that now faces a crisis of legitimacy. An exercise conducted once in 20 years, over approximately 51 crore records, has to be carried out carefully and inclusively or it converts a legitimate purification into a selective exclusion. The obligation on the state in both countries is the same, not to weaponise these requirements against those not in power.
About: Election integrity is the condition in which every stage of an election, from enrolment to the declaration of results, is conducted according to law and is accepted as such by winners and losers alike.
Rationale: Democratic legitimacy rests on the losing side accepting the result, so integrity is measured by trust in the process rather than by the accuracy of the count alone.
Pre poll phase: Covers electoral roll preparation and revision, delimitation and representation, candidate scrutiny and disqualification, and the registration and recognition of political parties.
During poll phase: Covers the Model Code of Conduct, the voting mechanism including electronic voting machines and the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail, and corrupt practices under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Post poll phase: Covers exit and opinion poll regulation under Sections 126A and 126(1)(b) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and election disputes through election petitions before High Courts.
The statutory division: The Representation of the People Act, 1950 governs the preparatory side including rolls and delimitation, and the Representation of the People Act, 1951 governs the conduct of elections including candidates, offences and disputes.
Laws and Rules Governing Electoral Rolls and Elections
Representation of the People Act, 1950: Provides for allocation of seats in Parliament and State Legislatures, delimitation of constituencies, and the preparation and maintenance of electoral rolls, and defines the machinery of electoral officers.
Section 21: The provision under which electoral rolls are prepared and maintained.
Sections 22 and 23: The provisions mandating correction, deletion and inclusion of entries, under which intensive revision is conducted.
Representation of the People Act, 1951: Governs the conduct of elections, qualifications and disqualifications of candidates, nomination and scrutiny, corrupt practices, election offences, expenditure limits and election petitions.
Section 8: Provides for disqualification on conviction, with immediate disqualification of a sitting legislator convicted and sentenced to two years or more, continuing for six years after release.
Section 29A: Provides for registration of political parties with the Election Commission.
Section 29C: Requires parties to disclose all donations above twenty thousand rupees annually to the Commission.
Section 100: Sets out the grounds on which an election may be declared void.
Registration of Electors Rules, 1960: Prescribe the procedure for preparation and revision of rolls, with Rule 18 requiring individual notice before deletion of an entry.
Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968: Governs recognition of parties as State or National parties and the allotment of reserved and free symbols.
Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Service Conditions) Act, 2023: Governs the appointment and service conditions of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners.
Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 (supplemented, not drawn from the Backgrounder): Prescribe the detailed procedure for nomination, polling, counting and declaration of results under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Election Commission Initiatives to Strengthen the Electoral Process
Electronic Voting Machines: Deployed across India since 2004, replacing the ballot box system used from 1952.
Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail: Deployed at all polling stations from the 2019 elections, printing a slip visible to the voter for seven seconds before it falls into a sealed compartment.
National Voters Services Portal: Allows voters to register, modify and confirm their electoral details online.
cVIGIL mobile application: Introduced for the 2019 elections, enabling over 20,000 complaints of electoral malpractice to be reported directly to the Commission, with complaints attended within 100 minutes in Bihar.
Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation: Targeted voter education campaigns that contributed to a turnout of approximately 67 percent in 2019, among the highest in Indian electoral history.
Photo electoral rolls: All voter lists carried photographs by the 2019 elections, reducing impersonation risk.
Election Seizure Management System: Provides real time reporting of interceptions of cash, liquor and other inducements, alongside 824 flying squads deployed in Bihar and static surveillance teams.
Biometric identification: Piloted in select constituencies during State elections to verify voter identity more accurately.
Key Facts about Elections and Electoral Rolls in India
Voter access commitments: No polling station is to have more than 1,200 voters, and polling stations are to be located within 2 km of voters’ residences.
Urban apathy measures: Polling stations are set up inside high rise buildings and residential colonies, with basic amenities guaranteed at every polling station.
Seat freeze: The Lok Sabha seat count has been frozen at 543 on the basis of 1971 Census figures, and average voters per constituency has grown from roughly 10 lakh in 1971 to 18 lakh today.
Delimitation Commissions: Four have been constituted so far, in 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002.
Expenditure ceiling: The official Lok Sabha election expenditure limit is now 95 lakh rupees, up from 25,000 rupees in 1951-52.
Verification record of the machines: Over 4 crore Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail slips have been tallied with the electronic counts of their control units without a single mismatch recorded.
Criminalisation of politics: A record 251 of the 543 members elected to the 18th Lok Sabha in 2024, or 46 percent, have criminal cases registered against them, and the proportion with serious charges rose from 24 percent in 2004. e.g. the conviction rate for politicians involved in crimes standing at only 6 percent, so most accused legislators complete full terms.
Money power and unaccounted funding: Over 60 percent of party income often comes from unknown sources, and registered political parties now exceed 2,800. e.g. cash, liquor and drugs worth over 100 crore rupees seized in Bihar in 2025 and 733.43 crore rupees in Karnataka in 2023.
Seizures that do not convert into convictions: The burden of proving that seized cash was meant to influence votes defeats most cases. e.g. 303.86 crore rupees seized in the 2014 Lok Sabha election released after income assessment, with criminal cases filed in only three of hundreds of instances.
Frozen representation: Seats fixed on 1971 population data leave voters in high growth States under represented, and any correction risks penalising States that reduced fertility. e.g. five southern States together standing to lose approximately 24 seats under a straight redistribution of the existing 543.
Women’s under representation: Women form 49 percent of the population and held approximately 11 percent of Lok Sabha seats as of 2021. e.g. the Women’s Reservation Bill, first introduced in 1996, having failed multiple times, and state laws eroding the grassroots gains secured by the 73rd and 74th Amendments through retrograde eligibility criteria.
Model Code of Conduct without statutory backing: The Code lacks statutory force and is enforced indirectly through existing law. e.g. the Supreme Court in Union of India versus Harbans Singh Jalal (2001) holding that the Code comes into force on the day the election date is announced, and opining that legalising the Code may not be suitable.
Trust deficit in the Commission: Repeated controversies over electronic voting machines, SIR and turnout data have eroded the Commission’s moral authority. e.g. the demand that the Commission release detailed verification data and establish mechanisms for public scrutiny.
Exit and opinion poll regulation gaps: Parliament limited only exit poll publication until the final phase, leaving opinion polls comparatively unrestricted. e.g. exit polls after the 2024 general elections significantly missing the actual result.
Constitutional status: A constitutional body established on 25 January 1950 under Article 324, governed by Articles 324 to 329 in Part XV of the Constitution.
Jurisdiction: Conducts and supervises elections to Parliament, State Legislatures and the offices of President and Vice President.
Composition: A multi member body comprising one Chief Election Commissioner and up to two Election Commissioners.
Status of the Chief Election Commissioner: Holds the same status, salary and perquisites as a judge of the Supreme Court, and can be removed only by a parliamentary address in the manner of a Supreme Court judge.
Removal of Election Commissioners: An Election Commissioner can be removed by the President only on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner.
Appointment: Governed by the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Service Conditions) Act, 2023, under which a Selection Committee comprising the Prime Minister, a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha recommends candidates.
The appointment dispute: The Supreme Court in Anoop Baranwal versus Union of India (2023) had directed that the selection panel include the Chief Justice of India until Parliament enacted a law, and the 2023 Act omitted the Chief Justice, which is under challenge.
Administrative functions: Preparation and revision of electoral rolls, notification of election dates, scrutiny of nomination papers, recognition of political parties and allotment of symbols.
Advisory and quasi judicial functions: Advises the President on disqualification of members of Parliament and Governors on State legislature disqualifications, cancels and reschedules polls for rigging or violence, and acts as a court for disputes on party recognition and symbols.
Way Forward
Publish the verification trail: Release booth level data on forms received, entries deleted and the reason recorded for each deletion, so that a claimed clean up is auditable rather than asserted.
Enforce the individual notice requirement: Make compliance with Rule 18 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 a precondition for deletion, with a recorded acknowledgement for every form collected.
Match the timeline to the task: Set the revision period from the verification workload of the largest States rather than a uniform 90 day window, given the Assam experience.
Provide a portable enrolment route for migrants: Enable remote or transferable enrolment so that absence from the registered address during verification does not by itself trigger deletion.
Require human confirmation of algorithmic matches: Treat artificial intelligence generated duplicate and identity matches as flags for field verification rather than as grounds for deletion.
Publish a single calendar: Issue one set of deadlines for each State at the outset, so that contradictory dates of the kind issued in Bihar do not recur.
Restore the appointment safeguard: Settle the composition of the Selection Committee for Election Commissioners, since the Commission’s perceived independence is the foundation of any acceptance of its roll revision.
Build a bilateral democratic agenda on rules, not on claims: Convert the shared interest of India and the United States in citizen only rolls and verified voting into a technical exchange on enrolment standards, after each restores trust in its own process.
“[2018, GS2, 10 marks] In the light of recent controversy regarding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), what are the challenges before the Election Commission of India to ensure the trustworthiness of elections in India?”
The enumeration phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls closed with forms uploaded for only 97.47 lakh of Delhi’s 1.45 crore electors, implying a deletion of about 32.41 per cent, the highest in the country. The same exercise has left 2.08 crore forms uncollected in Maharashtra and 1.08 crore Karnataka electors outside the draft roll. The revision is designed to purify the roll, and the figures show that the burden of staying on it has shifted to the elector within a fixed calendar.
What is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls?
About: A house to house revision of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in which every existing elector must be re verified rather than only new applicants being added.
Enumeration phase:Booth Level Officers (BLOs) carry pre filled enumeration forms door to door, help electors complete them and upload the details to the official portal.
Mapping requirement: Electors are required to map themselves or their lineage to an earlier reference roll, the 2002 roll in the States covered so far.
Consequence of non collection: A name whose form is not collected and digitised does not appear in the draft roll published at the end of the phase.
Restoration route: Exclusion from the draft is not final, since an elector may apply afresh during the claims and objections window.
What is the ASDDO category?
About: ASDDO stands for Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Other, the classification used for electors whose enumeration forms could not be collected.
What it does not mean: A form recorded as uncollected does not by itself establish that the elector is dead, has shifted or is ineligible, since the elector may simply not have been traced at the recorded address.
What is Form 6 in the electoral roll process?
About: Form 6 is the application for inclusion of a name in the electoral roll, prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
Use in this revision: Electors dropped from the draft roll must file Form 6 during the claims and objections period to be added to the final roll.
What do the State level enumeration figures show?
Delhi: Forms were uploaded for 97.47 lakh electors, about 67 per cent of the 1.45 crore on the roll when the exercise began, leaving 47.62 lakh marked uncollectible.
Maharashtra: Of an electorate of 9,78,54,049, forms for 7,69,52,262 or 78.64 per cent were digitised, 2,07,93,916 or 21.25 per cent were uncollected and 1,07,871 or 0.11 per cent remained pending.
Karnataka:1.08 crore electors fall in the ASDDO list, of whom 65.61 lakh or 11.84 per cent have permanently shifted, 16.38 lakh or 2.96 per cent are dead and 15.28 lakh or 2.76 per cent are untraceable or absent.
Karnataka notices: A further 25.14 lakh electors face notices under the No Mapping category for failing to link themselves or their lineage to the 2002 roll, with about 4.46 crore mapped electors digitised at 80.46 per cent.
Telangana:73.39 lakh names were deleted in the draft roll, 60 lakh showed anomalies and 32 lakh remain unmapped, so 92 lakh electors will receive notices out of a total of 3.38 crore.
Telangana breakdown:9,22,229 electors or 2.73 per cent have died, 57,46,803 or 16.99 per cent were found shifted or absent and 6,70,203 or 1.98 per cent were enrolled in more than one place.
Published draft rolls so far: Telangana recorded the highest deletion at 21.59 per cent, followed by Arunachal Pradesh at 19.09 per cent and Uttar Pradesh at 18.7 per cent.
How do the numbers differ between urban and rural districts?
City comparison: Deletions in the draft roll stand at 32.41 per cent in Delhi, 40.09 per cent in Hyderabad, 27.16 per cent in Pune and 20.26 per cent in Gurgaon.
Maharashtra’s four largest urban districts: Thane, Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban and Pune account for 94.47 lakh uncollected forms, 45.4 per cent of the State total, while holding only 27.5 per cent of the electorate.
District level peaks: Thane leads with 28.88 lakh of 74.51 lakh electors uncollected at 38.77 per cent, followed by Mumbai City at 37.57 per cent, Mumbai Suburban at 34.48 per cent and Pune at 31.92 per cent.
Next tier: Nagpur recorded 14.06 lakh uncollected forms at 30.32 per cent, Palghar 6.87 lakh at 28.88 per cent and Raigad 5.91 lakh at 23.33 per cent.
Rural contrast: Uncollected forms stand at 8.82 per cent in Hingoli, 9.10 per cent in Buldhana, 9.93 per cent in Ratnagiri and 10.62 per cent in Latur.
Concentration: Seven districts hold about 1.21 crore or 58.3 per cent of all uncollected forms while holding about 37 per cent of Maharashtra’s electorate.
Movement in the final days: Maharashtra’s uncollected figure rose from 1.80 crore on 12 August to 2.08 crore on 17 August, an increase of about 27.3 lakh in five days.
Why are deletion rates highest in the largest cities?
Floating population: Officials attribute the urban pattern to large migrant workforces recorded at addresses they no longer occupy.
Address updation gap: Government employees and salaried private sector workers move frequently and rarely update their address in the roll.
Physical verification limits: A Booth Level Officer must find the elector at the recorded address, which fails in high rise and high churn neighbourhoods.
Refusal category: Delhi officials estimate 1 to 2 lakh electors in the Other category, covering those who refuse to sign or submit enumeration forms.
Booth level concentration: In nearly 3,000 booths in Karnataka, deletion rates exceed 60 per cent, so the effect is concentrated rather than spread evenly.
Timeline pressure: Delhi’s enumeration was extended twice, from 29 July to 8 August and then to 17 August, because digitisation of forms lagged.
Does a shorter roll necessarily mean a more accurate one?
Two defensible objectives: Removing dead, shifted and duplicate entries protects the roll, and retaining every genuine elector protects the franchise, and the same procedure serves both unevenly.
Category conflation: A single uncollected label covers the dead, the shifted, the duplicated and the merely absent, so an administrative failure to trace is recorded alongside genuine ineligibility.
Reversal of the burden: The elector must now prove entitlement afresh within a fixed window rather than the State proving ineligibility before deletion.
Unequal cost of restoration: Filing Form 6 and producing documents is easiest for those with stable addresses and hardest for the migrant workers who dominate the deletion lists.
Contested reading of the data: Officials state that the draft is not a permanent deletion, while civil society groups in Karnataka petitioned the Chief Minister that about half of Bengaluru’s electors face removal.
Demand for more time: Civil society groups have asked the Karnataka government to seek a three month extension of the revision and to approach the Supreme Court if necessary.
What is the timeline from draft roll to final roll?
Draft publication: Draft electoral rolls are published on 24 August in Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Claims and objections: Electors may file claims and objections in Delhi until 23 September, and in Telangana from 17 August to 16 September.
Disposal window: Claims and objections in Delhi are to be disposed of between 24 August and 22 October, and in Telangana until 15 October.
Notices for incomplete forms: Electors who submitted forms with incomplete details receive notices seeking proof of eligibility over the following two months.
Final roll: The final electoral roll for Delhi is published on 27 October, and only that number settles the actual scale of exclusion.
Pre draft correction: Booth Level Agents of political parties and residents may point out errors in the list before the draft is published.
Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision
Documentary burden on the poor: Proof of lineage against a 2002 roll is hardest for those without stable records. e.g. Karnataka has issued No Mapping notices to 25.14 lakh electors who could not link themselves to the 2002 list.
Compressed calendar: Enumeration, notice and disposal phases overlap, leaving little time for genuine electors to respond. e.g. Delhi’s enumeration was extended twice and still closed with 47.62 lakh forms uncollected.
Booth Level Officer workload: One official covers a full booth in a fixed window with no realistic revisit capacity. e.g. Thane recorded nearly four in ten forms uncollected against fewer than one in ten in Hingoli.
Migrant disenfranchisement: India has no portable voting right, so a worker deleted at the home address is not automatically enrolled at the workplace. e.g. Mumbai Suburban recorded 26.99 lakh uncollected forms in a district built on internal migration.
Political contestation of the process: Deletion figures become an electoral dispute rather than an administrative one. e.g. a leading public figure in Karnataka reported being marked as shifted during enumeration.
Verification quality: Duplicate and dead entries are identified by field report rather than by linkage to a civil registration database. e.g. Telangana classified 9.22 lakh electors as dead on field verification alone.
Appeal capacity: Disposal of lakhs of claims within two months strains Electoral Registration Officers. e.g. Telangana must dispose of notices to 92 lakh electors by 15 October.
Conclusion
The revision has converted a routine roll correction into a mass re registration event whose cost falls hardest on internal migrants in large cities. The published deletion figures record failure to trace as much as genuine ineligibility, and the two are not separated in the draft. Draft rolls publish on 24 August, claims and objections close on 23 September in Delhi, and the final roll on 27 October is the first number that will show how many genuine electors were actually lost. The scale of restoration achieved in that window is the real test of the exercise.
[2024, GS2, 10 marks] Examine the need for electoral reforms as suggested by various committees with particular reference to “one nation-one election” principle.”
The Chief Election Commissioner stated on 16 August 2026 that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, which removed around 70 lakh names, was followed by a record 67.25 percent turnout in the 2025 Assembly election. The claim links roll purification to electoral participation at the same time that the revision is being contested elsewhere for excluding genuine electors.
What is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls?
About: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) rebuilds the electoral roll from scratch, verifying every existing entry afresh. It differs from the annual summary revision, which only adds, deletes and corrects entries at the margin.
Legal basis: The Election Commission of India (ECI) draws the power from Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which permits a special revision of the roll for any constituency at any time.
Enumeration stage:Booth Level Officers deliver and collect enumeration forms house to house. An existing elector who does not return the form does not carry into the draft roll.
Documentary stage: Electors not traceable to an earlier qualifying roll must furnish proof of date and place of birth. The 2003 Bihar roll served as the cut off reference in that State.
Claims and objections: A draft roll is published and a claims and objections window follows before the final roll. Appeals lie to the District Magistrate and then to the Chief Electoral Officer under Sections 24(a) and 24(b) of the 1950 Act.
Who is a Booth Level Officer?
About: A Booth Level Officer (BLO) is a local government or semi government employee appointed as the Election Commission’s field representative for a single polling station area.
Function: The BLO verifies entries house to house and assists the Electoral Registration Officer in preparing and updating the roll.
What is the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation programme?
About:Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) is the Election Commission’s voter education and outreach programme, running since 2009.
Function: It targets low turnout segments and first time voters through registration drives, campus outreach and mass media campaigns.
What is ECINET?
About:ECINET is the Election Commission’s single unified digital platform, built to merge over 40 separate voter and election applications into one interface.
Function: It brings voter registration, roll search, grievance filing and candidate affidavit access into a common login for electors, candidates and election officials.
What does the Election Commission’s Bihar assessment rest on?
Scale of deletion: The revision ran over a three month period and removed around 70 lakh names from the Bihar rolls.
Turnout figure: The November 2025 Assembly election recorded a 67.25 percent turnout, described by the Commission as the highest for Bihar since Independence.
International comparison: The turnout was placed above that recorded in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Japan.
Precedent value: The exercise was described as the most successful nationwide initiative for purification of electoral rolls, with Bihar as its point of origin.
Nature of the claim: The case rests on a sequence, a cleaner roll followed by a higher turnout, without a separate study isolating the revision’s own contribution.
Why does a cleaner roll raise the recorded turnout?
Denominator effect: Turnout is votes polled divided by registered electors. Removing dead, shifted and duplicate entries shrinks the denominator and lifts the percentage even when no additional elector votes.
Scale of that effect: A deletion of about 70 lakh names from a roll of roughly 7.9 crore electors cuts the base by close to 9 percent.
Mobilisation effect: House to house enumeration places a field officer at every household, which itself works as a registration and awareness contact.
Migration correction: Bihar has heavy outward migration, and migrants enrolled in the State depress turnout without ever voting there. Their removal raises the measured figure.
Limits of the inference: Turnout also moves with the closeness of the contest, weather and pre poll welfare announcements. Roll purification and higher participation are not the same achievement.
What does the Electoral Literacy Club 2.0 redesign involve?
Origin:Electoral Literacy Clubs (ELCs) were launched in 2018 under SVEEP to familiarise students and young citizens with democratic values, the electoral process and the working of the Election Commission.
Reason for the redesign: The revision responds to the changed information and communication environment and the higher digital engagement of young people.
New design: Clubs in schools, colleges and universities are to run as active, experiential and digitally enabled platforms operating through the year, rather than as one off event bodies.
Rollout: The launch conference at Patna draws students, teachers, vice chancellors, principals and institutional heads from more than 400 educational institutions across Bihar.
Companion launch:ECINET is being launched alongside, moving roll services and grievance redress onto a single platform.
Why is the Election Commission consulting Booth Level Officers directly?
Scale of the interaction: Around 500 Booth Level Officers are to be met at Rajgir to report ground level difficulties and suggest measures.
Workload: A single BLO verifies roughly 1,200 electors in one polling area during a revision, alongside a regular government posting.
Accountability exposure: The BLO signs off on additions and deletions, so roll errors surface first as complaints against the BLO.
Design feedback: Form design, document lists and timelines are fixed centrally, and their workability is visible only at the booth.
Trust interface: The BLO is the only Commission functionary most electors ever meet, so the credibility of the revision rests on that contact.
Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision
Burden of proof shifts to the elector: The elector must establish eligibility rather than the State establishing ineligibility. e.g. in Bihar, electors absent from the 2003 roll had to produce one of eleven listed documents, a list that excluded Aadhaar when the exercise began.
Exclusion of migrants: Seasonal and long distance migrants are absent when the enumeration form is delivered and are recorded as untraceable. e.g. Bihar supplies a large migrant workforce to Delhi, Punjab and Maharashtra, and absentee households formed one of the largest deletion categories.
Documentary gaps at the bottom of the income distribution: Birth and residence records are least available to landless households, women married into another district and people without formal schooling. e.g. the Supreme Court in the 2025 Bihar hearings directed the Commission to treat Aadhaar as an additional identity document.
Appeal capacity after deletion: A deletion is reversed only through an individual appeal that most excluded electors never file. e.g. the West Bengal revision left about 36.6 lakh cases pending before 19 tribunals.
Spillover into welfare access: Removal from the roll affects benefit access wherever the roll doubles as residence proof. e.g. electors excluded in the West Bengal revision face denial of State welfare entitlements.
The base year roll carries its own errors forward: A revision anchored to an older roll treats that roll as presumptively correct. e.g. the Bihar exercise took the 2003 intensive revision roll as the benchmark, so any error already inside it survived unexamined.
Conclusion
The Commission’s position is that the Bihar revision cleaned the roll and that a record turnout followed. Part of the measured gain comes from a smaller denominator, so a purified roll and a more participative electorate are separate claims. The next milestones are the rollout of Electoral Literacy Club 2.0 and ECINET, and the disposal of exclusion claims in the States where the revision is still running.
Electoral Roll Management in India
About: The electoral roll is the constituency wise list of persons qualified to vote, prepared by the Electoral Registration Officer and revised before every general election.
Scale: India’s roll carries close to 99 crore electors across about 10.5 lakh polling stations, the largest managed electorate in the world.
Qualifying dates: Since the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, a person may register with reference to four qualifying dates in a year, 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October, replacing the single 1 January cut off.
Machinery: The Commission has no permanent field cadre and works through State government staff deputed as Electoral Registration Officers and Booth Level Officers.
Two revision types: A summary revision updates the roll annually, while an intensive or special intensive revision reconstructs it.
Constitutional Framework Governing Elections and Electoral Rolls
Article 324: Vests superintendence, direction and control of elections to Parliament, State legislatures, the office of President and the office of Vice President in the Election Commission.
Article 325: Bars a separate electoral roll for any constituency on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex, and bars exclusion from the general roll on those grounds.
Article 326: Provides that elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies shall be on the basis of adult suffrage, with 18 years as the qualifying age.
Article 327: Empowers Parliament to make provision with respect to elections, including the preparation of electoral rolls.
Article 328: Gives State legislatures a residual power to legislate on elections to their own legislature.
Article 329: Bars courts from questioning the validity of a delimitation law and confines election disputes to an election petition.
Article 324(5): Protects the Chief Election Commissioner from removal except in the manner and on the grounds applicable to a Supreme Court judge.
Articles 243K and 243ZA: Vest panchayat and municipal roll preparation and election conduct in State Election Commissions, separate from the Election Commission of India.
Laws and Rules Governing Electoral Rolls
Representation of the People Act, 1950: Provides for the allocation of seats, delimitation of constituencies and the preparation of electoral rolls.
Section 16: Disqualifications for registration, including non citizenship and unsoundness of mind.
Section 19: Conditions of registration, being 18 years of age and ordinarily resident in the constituency.
Section 21: Power to prepare, revise and specially revise the roll.
Sections 22 and 23: Correction, deletion and inclusion of entries.
Section 24: Appeals against orders of the Electoral Registration Officer.
Representation of the People Act, 1951: Governs the actual conduct of elections, qualifications and disqualifications of candidates, corrupt practices and election petitions.
Registration of Electors Rules, 1960: Prescribes the forms, including Form 6 for new registration, Form 6A for overseas electors, Form 7 for objection to inclusion and Form 8 for corrections and shifting.
Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961: Governs polling, counting and the declaration of results.
Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021: Allows voluntary linking of Aadhaar with the electoral roll, introduces four qualifying dates and makes service voter provisions gender neutral.
Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023: Governs the appointment, salary and tenure of the Commission’s members.
Back2Basics: Election Commission of India
A constitutional body established under Article 324, which came into existence on 25 January 1950.
Originally a single member body, it became a multi member body permanently from 1 October 1993, with a Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners.
Members hold office for six years or until the age of 65, whichever is earlier.
The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only by the process applicable to a Supreme Court judge, while an Election Commissioner is removed on the Chief Election Commissioner’s recommendation.
It conducts elections to Parliament, State legislatures, and the offices of President and Vice President, and does not conduct local body elections.
It registers political parties and allots symbols under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.
Headquarters: Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi.
Government Initiatives
SVEEP: The flagship voter education programme, targeting low turnout pockets, women, young and urban electors.
Electoral Literacy Clubs and ELC 2.0: Institution based clubs converting classroom electoral literacy into year round, digitally enabled activity.
ECINET: A unified platform consolidating over 40 Commission applications and portals into one login.
cVIGIL: A citizen application for reporting Model Code of Conduct violations with a 100 minute response commitment.
Voter Helpline App and National Voters’ Service Portal: Online registration, roll search and grievance tracking for electors.
ERONET: The backend platform used by Electoral Registration Officers to process roll applications.
Home voting facility: Postal ballot at residence for electors above 85 years, persons with benchmark disabilities and essential service workers.
Saksham App: Accessibility services for persons with disabilities, including wheelchair requests at polling stations.
Key Facts about the Election Commission and Electoral Rolls
National Voters’ Day is observed on 25 January, marking the Commission’s foundation day, and has been observed since 2011.
The 61st Constitutional Amendment Act, 1988 lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.
NOTA was introduced after PUCL v. Union of India, 2013.
The first general election was held in 1951 to 1952.
The Model Code of Conduct originated in Kerala in 1960 and remains non statutory, enforced through the Commission’s Article 324 powers.
Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 bars persons in prison from voting.
VVPAT was first used in the Noksen Assembly constituency of Nagaland in 2013.
Challenges in Electoral Roll Management
Duplicate entries across States: A person registered in two States remains countable twice until one entry is deleted. e.g. duplicate Elector Photo Identity Card numbers across State rolls were flagged by the Commission in 2025, prompting a unique numbering exercise.
Internal migrants remain effectively disenfranchised: An elector registered in the home State cannot vote from the workplace. e.g. the Commission’s proposed Remote Electronic Voting Machine demonstration in January 2023 was deferred after political parties objected.
Urban apathy in registration and voting: Metropolitan constituencies persistently record turnout below rural averages. e.g. Mumbai and Bengaluru seats have repeatedly polled in the fifties while adjoining rural seats crossed seventy percent.
Dependence on borrowed staff: The Commission has no permanent field cadre and relies on State employees. e.g. schoolteachers deputed as Booth Level Officers handle enumeration alongside teaching duties.
Aadhaar linkage and privacy: Linking is legally voluntary but is pursued as a mass collection drive. e.g. the Supreme Court has been asked to examine whether the voluntary character of Aadhaar seeding was preserved during roll updation drives.
Registration gaps for marginal groups: Homeless persons, transgender electors and pavement dwellers lack the address proof the forms assume. e.g. the Commission has had to permit registration of homeless electors on the basis of a Booth Level Officer’s night visit verification.
Weak deterrence against wrongful deletion: Objections under Form 7 can be filed in bulk with limited verification. e.g. mass Form 7 objections in urban constituencies have repeatedly triggered Commission inquiries into organised deletion attempts.
Way Forward
Publish a machine readable deletion audit: Release booth wise reasons for every deletion, categorised as deceased, shifted, duplicate or untraceable, so the reduction in the roll is independently verifiable.
Create a statutory appeal timeline: Fix an outer limit for disposal of Section 24 appeals and provide free legal assistance to excluded electors at the tribunal stage.
Build a permanent electoral registration cadre: Replace fully deputed staff with a trained standing cadre at the district level to reduce error and turnover.
Operationalise remote voting for migrants: Move the remote voting machine pilot forward with an all party technical audit, so migration ceases to be a deletion ground.
Adopt a single national elector identity: Complete the unique elector number rollout so cross State duplicates are eliminated without deleting genuine electors.
De link the roll from welfare eligibility: Ensure that ration, pension and housing entitlements are not conditioned on electoral roll presence.
Institutionalise the Booth Level Officer consultation: Convert one off conferences into a standing feedback mechanism feeding into form design and document lists.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2018, GS2, 10 marks] In the light of recent controversy regarding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), what are the challenges before the Election Commission of India to ensure the trustworthiness of elections in India?”
Around 36.6 lakh cases were still to clear the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal at the last count in June, with 19 tribunals scrutinising applications for “logical discrepancies”. Those already marked excluded have received no reasons, no written orders and no statement of what exclusion means for their entitlements, so a roll revision has become a determination of status without the safeguards that a determination of status requires.
What is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls?
About: It is a house to house re verification of the entire electoral roll, in which every existing elector must establish eligibility afresh rather than the roll being presumed correct.
Legal basis: Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 empowers the Election Commission of India to direct a special revision of the roll of any constituency at any time, for reasons to be recorded in writing.
How it differs from a summary revision: A summary revision only adds, deletes or corrects entries on application, and leaves the existing roll intact as the base.
Role of the base year roll: The roll from the last intensive revision is treated as conclusive proof of eligibility, and in West Bengal that base is the 2002 roll.
Process flow: The elector files an enumeration form with the Booth Level Officer, then faces claims and objections, then a hearing before the Electoral Registration Officer, then adjudication, and finally an appeal to a tribunal.
What is a Booth Level Officer?
About: A Booth Level Officer (BLO) is a local government employee appointed by the Electoral Registration Officer as the field level link between the elector and the electoral registration machinery for a single polling booth.
Function: The BLO distributes and collects enumeration forms, verifies residence, and forwards claims and objections upward, but holds no power to decide inclusion or deletion.
What is the appellate stage in an electoral roll dispute?
About: Sections 24 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 provide for an appeal against an order of the Electoral Registration Officer on inclusion, deletion or correction of a name, to a designated appellate authority.
What it requires: An appellate order must record reasons, since the reasons are what an aggrieved elector needs to frame a further challenge before a High Court.
What is the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019?
About: It provides an accelerated path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India on or before 31 December 2014.
Why it appears here: The West Bengal government has stated that persons who have applied under this Act will be exempted from the withdrawal of state welfare benefits on deletion from the roll.
What does the pendency before the tribunals show about the scale of the exercise?
Volume of unresolved cases: Around 36.6 lakh cases were awaiting clearance at the last count, which was in June.
The adjudicating machinery:19 tribunals are scrutinising these applications, which is the final hurdle in the process.
The test being applied: The tribunals are examining applications for “logical discrepancies”, a standard nowhere defined in the published process.
The disposal figure is opaque: The Election Commission has said the tribunals disposed of 38,000 cases till June, with no clarity on how many of those were of persons deleted from the roll.
Judicial pressure for disclosure: The Supreme Court has nudged the Election Commission to divulge the figures, with the next hearing listed for 25 August.
The information gap: The Commission has stayed tightlipped on the details of an exercise without precedent in the State.
Why do those already excluded not know what follows exclusion?
Five possible outcomes, none confirmed: Those deleted have been left uncertain between detention, deportation, denial of government benefits, a long court case, or reapplication from the start.
The State government’s position: The State government has publicly raised all of these as possibilities without settling on any.
The Election Commission’s position: The Commission says reapplication, starting again as a “new voter”, is an option available to the excluded.
The welfare decision: In its first Cabinet meeting the State government decided that persons deleted in the SIR will not be able to avail State welfare schemes.
The stated exceptions: Exceptions were announced for those whose applications are pending before tribunals and for those who have applied under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
What repetition has done: Ministers have repeated the warning since, so the linkage between the roll and rations is now an operating expectation rather than a rule.
What do the individual cases reveal about how the tribunals operate?
Deletion without notice: A Bolpur family learnt in May that the tribunal had ruled against a 72 year old man and his 42 year old daughter, and they received no notice of the order.
No reasons and no written orders: Counsel for an excluded elector in Hooghly states that the tribunals assign no reasons and issue no written order on the basis of which a court can be approached.
The 2002 roll decides everything: One Bolpur elector’s name was excluded because he had worked in Kolkata and was therefore absent from the 2002 roll, which the Commission treats as conclusive proof.
Documents did not settle the case: The same family produced secondary and higher secondary board certificates at the hearing, and the cases still went to the tribunal and ended in deletion.
Errors in the notices themselves: A 31 year old woman in Arambagh was served a notice stating she had seven siblings when she has four, and all four cleared the revision while she was dropped.
Families split across the roll: A 48 year old Hooghly construction worker’s mother, brother and wife are on the roll while he was dropped without ever being asked for documents.
No acknowledgment of appeals: A 50 year old garland maker in a Kolkata slum filed her appeal offline and never received even an acknowledgment from the tribunal, while the Commission’s website shows her as excluded.
Scale within a single booth: One Booth Level Officer reported that 105 of the 1,017 voters in his booth were deleted, adding that in his personal opinion they may be genuine voters and that no reason was shown.
The field machinery cannot explain it: Booth Level Officers in the affected wards say only that the office and the tribunal judges will decide.
Why does exclusion from the roll now reach beyond the vote?
Rations are the immediate fear: Excluded electors report that they continue to receive rations and expect them to stop, having heard ministers say the deleted will lose access to schemes.
Pensions are equally exposed: A widow receiving a State widow pension alongside rations reports the same fear, on an income of Rs 200 a day from selling flower garlands.
Ordinary financial transactions are in doubt: Excluded electors are unsure whether they can complete formalities for bank accounts or an LPG connection without a name on the roll.
The franchise has already been lost: A Bolpur father and daughter could not vote in the 2026 elections because of their SIR status, before any tribunal had finally ruled.
Social standing is affected: Those deleted fear how neighbours will treat them once exclusion becomes known, since the label carries an implication of foreign origin.
Citizenship is being inferred from a roll: An electoral roll records eligibility to vote, not nationality, yet deportation and detention are being discussed as consequences of deletion.
Why is the judicial remedy not a real remedy for those excluded?
The High Court can only send it back: On 4 August the Calcutta High Court directed the tribunal to consider and dispose of one appellant’s appeal afresh, preferably within three months, which restarts rather than resolves the case.
Related cases move separately: In the same family, the daughter’s petition was still awaiting a hearing when the father’s was remanded.
Delay compounds: A petition moved on 28 July by another excluded elector was still awaiting a hearing weeks later.
Only individuals may appeal: Assistance organisations were told that the individual, not a representative body, must approach the High Court, which rules out a collective petition.
Cost is prohibitive: Excluded electors state plainly that they do not have the money to go to court on daily wage incomes.
Appeals disappear before they are heard: An assistance organisation working in Kolkata slums filed 54 offline appeals to tribunals on 10 April and received no acknowledgment receipt for 17 of them.
Absence of reasons blocks the appeal itself: Without a reasoned order stating why a name was deleted, an appellant has nothing to challenge.
Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision
Reversal of the burden of proof: The exercise requires a long standing elector to prove eligibility rather than requiring the State to prove ineligibility. e.g. electors in Bolpur who voted in successive elections were required to produce board certificates to retain a name already on the roll.
Documentary thresholds that exclude the poor: Linking eligibility to a 2002 roll entry disadvantages migrants, women married across districts and the landless. e.g. a Kolkata slum resident whose late husband migrated from Bihar could not link herself to the 2002 roll while her son linked himself to an uncle and cleared.
Absence of reasoned orders in the appellate chain: Adjudication without written reasons defeats the right to appeal. e.g. an Arambagh elector’s counsel records that no reason was given for deletion and no written order was issued.
Administrative errors carried into final orders: Verification data is entered without cross checking against the household record. e.g. a notice recorded seven siblings for an elector who has four, and the error was never corrected before deletion.
Linkage of the roll to welfare entitlements: Making ration, pension and scheme access contingent on roll status converts an electoral process into a subsistence question. e.g. the State Cabinet decided that persons deleted in the revision would not be able to avail State welfare schemes.
Conflation of electoral registration with citizenship: Deletion is being treated as evidence of foreign nationality without any determination under citizenship law. e.g. detention and deportation have been publicly discussed as consequences of deletion from the roll.
Capacity of the field machinery: A single Booth Level Officer handles over a thousand electors alongside a regular government job and cannot explain the outcomes. e.g. one BLO recorded 105 deletions among 1,017 electors and said he did not know the reasons.
Opacity of published data: Aggregate figures are released without the breakdown needed to audit the process. e.g. the Commission’s figure of 38,000 disposed cases does not disclose how many concerned deletions.
Conclusion
The revision has not ended with the publication of the roll. The tribunals decide exclusion without reasons and without written orders, so the excluded cannot frame an appeal, while the State government has linked deletion to the loss of welfare benefits and public discussion has extended it to detention and deportation. A correction of the electoral roll has therefore become a determination of legal status carried out without the procedural protections that such a determination requires. Until the Election Commission discloses the tribunal outcomes and the consequences of exclusion are fixed in law rather than in political statements, the 36.6 lakh pending cases remain a question of livelihood as much as of the franchise.
Electoral Roll Management in India
About: The electoral roll is the constituency wise register of persons qualified to vote, prepared and revised under the superintendence of the Election Commission of India.
Scale: India’s electorate crossed 97 crore at the 2024 general election, spread across more than 10.5 lakh polling stations, which makes the roll the largest voter register in the world.
Qualifying date: A person must have attained 18 years on the qualifying date, and since the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 there are four qualifying dates each year, on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October.
Field machinery: The chain runs from the Chief Electoral Officer of the State, to the District Election Officer, the Electoral Registration Officer, the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer and the Booth Level Officer, with Booth Level Agents appointed by political parties.
Types of revision: Revision may be intensive, summary, or partly intensive and partly summary, and the Commission may additionally order a special revision at any time.
Forms used: Form 6 for inclusion, Form 6A for overseas electors, Form 6B for voluntary Aadhaar linkage, Form 7 for objection to inclusion or for deletion, and Form 8 for correction, shifting or replacement.
Publication cycle: A draft roll is published, claims and objections are invited for a fixed period, and the final roll is published after disposal.
Article 324: Vests the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls in the Election Commission of India.
Article 325: Provides for one general electoral roll for every constituency and bars exclusion on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex.
Article 326: Establishes adult suffrage, entitling every citizen aged 18 or above to registration unless disqualified for non residence, unsoundness of mind, crime, or corrupt or illegal practice.
Article 327: Empowers Parliament to make law on all matters relating to elections, including the preparation of electoral rolls.
Article 328: Gives a State legislature power to legislate on State election matters not covered by parliamentary law.
Article 329(b): Bars court interference in elections except through an election petition presented in the manner provided by law.
Article 11: Vests exclusively in Parliament the power to regulate the acquisition and termination of citizenship, so citizenship cannot be determined by an electoral registration authority.
Laws and Rules Governing Electoral Rolls
Representation of the People Act, 1950: Governs the preparation and revision of electoral rolls and the qualifications for registration.
Section 16: Disqualifies a person from registration if they are not a citizen of India, or are of unsound mind as declared by a competent court, or are disqualified under a law relating to corrupt practices.
Section 19: Requires that a person be at least 18 years old on the qualifying date and be ordinarily resident in the constituency.
Section 20: Defines ordinary residence, and clarifies that mere ownership of property does not create residence.
Section 21: Provides for preparation and revision of rolls, with sub section 3 empowering a special revision for reasons recorded in writing.
Sections 22 and 23: Provide for correction of entries and inclusion of names in a roll already published.
Section 24: Provides an appeal against an order of the Electoral Registration Officer to the designated appellate authority.
Section 31: Penalises a false declaration made in connection with the preparation of a roll.
Registration of Electors Rules, 1960: Prescribe the forms, the manner of publication of the draft roll, the notice and hearing procedure for claims and objections, and the publication of the final roll.
Representation of the People Act, 1951: Governs the conduct of elections, qualifications and disqualifications of candidates, corrupt practices and election petitions.
Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021: Introduced voluntary Aadhaar linkage of electoral roll data and added three additional qualifying dates each year.
Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019: Govern the acquisition and determination of citizenship, which is a separate statutory process from electoral registration.
Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023: Governs the appointment, service conditions and tenure of the Election Commissioners.
Back2Basics: Election Commission of India
Constitutional status: A permanent constitutional body established under Article 324, which came into existence on 25 January 1950.
Composition: It functioned as a single member body until 1989, and has been a three member body comprising the Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners continuously since 1993.
Appointment: Under the 2023 Act, the President appoints them on the recommendation of a committee comprising the Prime Minister, a Union Cabinet Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Tenure: Six years or until the age of 65, whichever is earlier.
Removal: The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court, and an Election Commissioner only on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner.
Mandate: It conducts elections to Parliament, the State legislatures and the offices of the President and Vice President, and prepares and revises the electoral rolls for them.
Limits of its jurisdiction: Panchayat and municipal elections are conducted by State Election Commissions under Articles 243K and 243ZA, not by the Election Commission of India.
Headquarters: New Delhi, with a Chief Electoral Officer in every State and Union Territory.
Government and Election Commission Initiatives
ECINET: A unified digital platform consolidating the Commission’s separate voter and election applications into a single interface for electors, candidates and officials.
Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP), 2009: The Commission’s flagship voter education and registration outreach programme, targeted at young, urban and low turnout groups.
Electoral Literacy Clubs: Institutional clubs in schools, colleges and communities to build electoral awareness among future and new electors, now expanded in a second version.
National Voters’ Service Portal and Voter Helpline application: Provide online filing of Forms 6, 7 and 8, roll search and status tracking without a visit to the Electoral Registration Officer.
cVIGIL application: Allows any citizen to report a Model Code of Conduct violation with a geotagged photograph or video, with a hundred minute response commitment.
Form 6B Aadhaar linkage: Permits voluntary submission of the Aadhaar number under the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 to remove duplicate entries.
Remote voting machine prototype: A multi constituency electronic voting machine demonstrated to political parties to enable domestic migrants to vote from their place of work.
Key Facts about Elections and Electoral Rolls
National Voters’ Day is observed on 25 January, marking the foundation of the Election Commission of India in 1950, and was first observed in 2011.
India’s electorate has grown from about 17.3 crore at the first general election to about 97 crore in 2024.
The voting age was lowered from 21 years to 18 years by the 61st Constitutional Amendment Act, 1988.
The None of the Above option was introduced on electronic voting machines after the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties case.
Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 bars a person confined in prison from voting, though the right to be registered on the roll continues.
The last intensive revision in West Bengal was in 2002, which is why that roll serves as the base for the current exercise.
An election petition challenging an election lies only before the High Court, under Article 329(b) read with the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Challenges in Electoral Roll Management
Duplicate and multiple entries: Internal migration produces the same elector on two rolls. e.g. seasonal construction and agricultural migrants are commonly registered both in their home district and at their work destination.
Deletion without notice or hearing: Names are removed without the elector being informed, defeating the statutory right to be heard. e.g. electors in West Bengal report learning of deletion only from the Commission’s website months after the order.
Documentary burden on the poorest: Proof of ancestry and continuous residence is hardest for those who most need welfare entitlements. e.g. slum residents whose parents were never on an earlier intensive revision roll cannot establish the required link.
Conflation of roll status with citizenship: An administrative deletion is treated in public discourse as a finding of foreign nationality. e.g. the 2019 Assam National Register of Citizens excluded about 19 lakh people whose status remained unresolved for years afterwards.
Field level capacity constraints: A Booth Level Officer covers over a thousand electors while performing a full time government job. e.g. teachers and anganwadi workers deployed as Booth Level Officers carry the verification of an entire polling area alone.
Aadhaar linkage and wrongful deletion risk: Automated matching against another database produces false deletions. e.g. the 2015 National Electoral Roll Purification programme in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh removed large numbers of names before Aadhaar seeding was halted.
Weak appellate quality: Appellate authorities decide without recording reasons, which removes the basis for judicial review. e.g. tribunal orders in the current revision are reported to carry neither reasons nor a written order.
Data opacity: Aggregate disposal figures are published without a breakdown by outcome. e.g. a figure of cases disposed conveys nothing about how many electors were deleted and on what ground.
Way Forward
Mandate reasoned written orders at every stage: Require every adjudicating and appellate authority to issue a speaking order stating the ground of deletion and to serve it on the elector.
Guarantee acknowledgment and tracking: Issue a machine generated receipt for every claim, objection and appeal, with an online status tracker, so no appeal can disappear.
Fix statutory timelines: Prescribe an outer limit for disposal of appeals, since indefinite pendency is itself a denial of the franchise.
Delink the electoral roll from welfare entitlements: State expressly that ration, pension and scheme access do not depend on the roll, since entitlement statutes and the roll rest on different criteria.
Provide free legal aid at the tribunal stage: Route District Legal Services Authority assistance to appellants automatically, since individual appeals are otherwise unaffordable.
Publish disaggregated data: Release constituency wise and booth wise figures for deletions, grounds and appeal outcomes so that the exercise can be independently audited.
Strengthen and supervise the field machinery: Cap the number of electors per Booth Level Officer, provide dedicated deputation rather than additional charge, and audit a random sample of verifications.
Separate citizenship determination from electoral registration: Confirm that a question of nationality can only be decided under the Citizenship Act, 1955 by the competent authority, and never by an electoral registration order.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2017, GS2, 15 marks] To enhance the quality of democracy in India the Election Commission of India has proposed electoral reforms in 2016. What are the suggested reforms and how far are they significant to make democracy successful?”
The Supreme Court asked the Election Commission of India to furnish data on the disposal rate of appeals filed by persons excluded from the West Bengal electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision. The court declined to fix a timeline for the appellate tribunals but signalled it would restructure the disposal architecture if performance is found wanting, exposing the tension between the right to an effective remedy and the slow pace of appeal disposal linked to welfare access.
What is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls?
Definition: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is an intensive, house to house verification of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India to add eligible voters and remove ineligible entries.
Object: Its stated aim is that no eligible voter is excluded and no ineligible person is included in the draft electoral roll.
Process: Booth Level Officers collect enumeration forms from households, after which the draft roll is published and objections are heard.
Appeal route: Persons whose names are excluded may appeal before designated appellate tribunals set up following Supreme Court orders.
What did the Supreme Court direct?
Data on disposal: The court asked the Election Commission of India to furnish details on the quantum of appeals disposed by the appellate tribunals.
No fixed timeline: It declined to bind the tribunals to a specific timeline for deciding appeals.
Focus on quantum: The court clarified it is concerned with the volume and speed of disposal, not the outcome of individual appeals.
Restructuring option: It indicated it may revisit and restructure the disposal architecture, including online access for the deciding officer, if performance appears wanting.
Next hearing: The matter was listed for 25 August.
Why does appeal disposal matter beyond the roll?
Under one percent decided: The petitioner submitted that the tribunals had not decided even one percent of the appeals.
Welfare linkage: Counsel argued that the State was denying ration and other benefits to those deleted from the rolls whose appeals were pending.
Access barrier: People from distant areas found it difficult to physically reach the tribunals, prompting the court to examine logistical issues.
Remedy must be effective: The court observed that merely filing an appeal may not satisfy a litigant if the due process does not yield an outcome.
Separate cause of action: On the welfare denial, the court advised the petitioner to approach the Calcutta High Court as it involved a different cause of action.
Where does the genuine tension lie?
Judicial restraint versus effective remedy: The court will not fix a decision timeline for the tribunals, yet insists that an appeal must lead to a real outcome.
Roll purity versus disenfranchisement: Intensive revision seeks accurate rolls, while slow appeal disposal risks keeping eligible voters excluded.
Electoral right versus welfare access: Exclusion from the roll is linked to denial of ration and welfare, widening the stakes beyond voting.
Creator’s duty: As the creator of the tribunals, the court accepts responsibility to ensure the due process it designed actually functions.
About Electoral Roll Management in India
Definition: The electoral roll is the list of eligible voters for a constituency, maintained and periodically revised by the Election Commission of India.
Legal basis: Roll preparation and revision are governed by the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
Eligibility: A person may be enrolled only in the constituency where they are ordinarily resident and whose name appears on the roll may contest and vote.
Revision types: Rolls are updated through summary revision and, where needed, intensive or special intensive revision.
Statutory Framework Governing Electoral Rolls
Article 324: Vests superintendence, direction, and control of elections and roll preparation in the Election Commission of India.
Article 326: Provides for adult suffrage as the basis of elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies.
Representation of the People Act, 1950: Governs allocation of seats and preparation of electoral rolls.
Representation of the People Act, 1951: Governs the conduct of elections, qualifications, and disqualifications of candidates.
Registration of Electors Rules, 1960: Prescribes the procedure for enrolment, revision, appeals, and correction of rolls.
Back2Basics: Election Commission of India (ECI)
Constitutional basis: Established under Article 324 as an independent constitutional body.
Composition: A Chief Election Commissioner and such number of Election Commissioners as the President fixes.
Jurisdiction: Conducts elections to Parliament, State legislatures, and the offices of President and Vice President, and maintains electoral rolls.
Tenure and removal: The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only through the process applicable to a Supreme Court judge.
Function in focus: Preparation and revision of electoral rolls, including intensive revision exercises.
“[2017] For election to the Lok Sabha, a nomination paper can be filed by
(a) Anyone residing in India.
(b) A resident of the constituency from which the election is to be contested.
(c) Any citizen of India whose name appears in the electoral roll of a constituency.
The defeat of the Trinamool Congress in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections and a wave of defections across regional parties have raised questions about their future. Lokniti CSDS data shows regional parties have retained a consistent one third vote share across four Lok Sabha elections, exposing that their challenge is organisational renewal rather than declining voter support.
How are national and regional parties classified?
What it is: The Election Commission of India classifies parties as national, state (regional), or registered unrecognised, based on vote share and seats won in general and state elections.
Why vote share matters: Vote share is the best indicator of a party’s underlying support base, because India’s first past the post system magnifies both victories and defeats in seat terms.
What do the Lok Sabha vote share figures show, 2009 to 2024?
National parties combined: 63.59 per cent in 2009, 60.04 per cent in 2014, 68.15 per cent in 2019, and 62.72 per cent in 2024.
Regional parties combined: 31.22 per cent in 2009, 35.85 per cent in 2014, 28.1 per cent in 2019, and 33.53 per cent in 2024.
National seats: National parties won 376 seats in 2009, 342 in 2014, 397 in 2019, and 346 in 2024.
BJP trajectory: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rose from 116 seats and 18.8 per cent in 2009 to 282 seats and 31 per cent in 2014, 303 seats and 37.3 per cent in 2019, and 240 seats and 36.56 per cent in 2024.
Congress trajectory: The Congress fell from 206 seats and 28.55 per cent in 2009 to 44 seats and 19.31 per cent in 2014, then 52 seats and 19.46 per cent in 2019, and 99 seats and 21.19 per cent in 2024.
Stable one third: Regional parties have consistently secured around one third of total votes, the only dip being 2019 at 28.1 per cent, held down by the Balakot air strike backdrop.
What does the state wise picture show?
Assembly preference: Voters display a much stronger preference for regional parties in Assembly elections than in Lok Sabha elections, underscoring the enduring pull of state level identities.
Replacement within the regional camp: In Tamil Nadu, when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam faced a setback, it was replaced by another regional party rather than by a national one.
Persistent strength: Regional parties retain significant vote share across several states despite fluctuations in seats won.
Why do defections not signal shrinking support?
Trinamool: The Trinamool Congress witnessed several defections following its West Bengal defeat.
Aam Aadmi Party: The Aam Aadmi Party saw many of its Rajya Sabha members defect.
Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar): It saw defections in Maharashtra.
Distinction: These point to organisational vulnerabilities, but defections by themselves do not indicate a shrinking electoral support base.
What is the governance footprint of regional parties?
Independent rule: Regional parties independently govern four states, the lowest number in nearly two and a half decades, down from nine states independently governed between 2015 and 2020.
Dominant coalition partners: Regional parties are the dominant partners in four states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Puducherry.
Junior partners: The BJP leads coalitions with regional allies in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Maharashtra, and Tripura, while the Congress is a junior partner in Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Tamil Nadu.
Fewer governments, stable votes: The decline in the number of governments headed by regional parties does not imply a corresponding decline in their electoral support.
Setback versus survival, the real challenge
Not declining votes: The challenge before regional parties is not declining voter support but organisational renewal.
FPTP distortion: The first past the post system magnifies seat swings even when vote share stays broadly stable.
Too early for an obituary: A consistent one third vote share shows it is premature to write the obituary of regional parties.
One Nation One Election context
The proposal: The proposed One Nation One Election framework would synchronise Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections.
Concern for regional parties: Regional parties fear that simultaneous polls could let national issues and better resourced national parties overshadow state level concerns where regional parties are strongest.
What are the challenges to regional parties?
Organisational decay: Weak cadre structures and dependence on single leaders leave parties fragile.
Defections and poaching: Loss of legislators erodes bargaining power even when vote share holds.
Leadership succession: Founder centric parties struggle with generational transition.
Resource asymmetry: National parties command far greater funding and media reach.
Simultaneous elections risk: One Nation One Election could dilute the salience of state issues.
Coalition dependence: Falling numbers of independent governments push parties into junior roles.
Conclusion
Regional parties continue to retain a substantial and consistent support base despite electoral setbacks and defections. The evidence shows their difficulty is organisational renewal, not shrinking voter preference, since vote share has stayed near one third across four Lok Sabha elections. Both national and regional parties hold stable places in India’s party system.
India’s Party System (Foundational Context)
About: India has a multi party system with recognised national parties, recognised state parties, and registered unrecognised parties.
Rationale: Party recognition governs privileges such as reserved election symbols, free broadcast time, and star campaigner allowances.
Classification basis: The Election Commission of India recognises parties based on thresholds of vote share and seats won in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
Key Concerns Regarding the Party System
Intra party democracy deficit: Many parties lack transparent internal elections and leadership accountability.
Money and elections: Rising campaign expenditure entrenches resource rich parties.
Defections: Frequent defections weaken mandate stability despite anti defection law.
Personality centric organisation: Dependence on individual leaders undermines institutional continuity.
Back2Basics: Representation of the People Act, 1951
What it is: The Representation of the People Act, 1951 governs the conduct of elections to Parliament and state legislatures.
Coverage: It covers qualifications and disqualifications of members, registration of parties, and corrupt practices and offences.
Party recognition: Party recognition and symbol allotment operate under this Act and the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.
Regulator: It is administered by the Election Commission of India, a constitutional body under Article 324.
Constitutional and Statutory Framework Governing Elections
Article 324: Vests superintendence, direction, and control of elections in the Election Commission of India.
Article 325: Provides a single general electoral roll and bars exclusion on grounds of religion, race, caste, or sex.
Article 326: Provides for elections on the basis of adult suffrage.
Representation of the People Act, 1950: Governs preparation of electoral rolls and allocation of seats.
Representation of the People Act, 1951: Governs the actual conduct of elections and party registration.
Way Forward
Strengthen internal democracy: Institutionalise leadership succession and cadre building within regional parties.
Reform party finance: Improve transparency to reduce resource asymmetry.
Enforce anti defection: Tighten timelines and disqualification processes to deter defections.
Protect federal representation: Design electoral reforms, including any simultaneous elections proposal, to safeguard state level voice.
PYQ Relevance
[UPSC 2024] Examine the need for electoral reforms as suggested by various committees with particular reference to “one nation-one election” principle.
Linkage: The PYQ directly relates to electoral reforms and the One Nation-One Election proposal. The article highlights how simultaneous elections could affect regional parties, state-level issues and India’s federal party system.
In Telangana, 73.47 lakh enumeration forms, nearly 22% of the electorate, were marked “Uncollectable” during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The large number raises concerns about balancing clean electoral rolls with the risk of excluding genuine voters.
What is Special Intensive Revision (SIR)?
SIR: Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
Conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) through comprehensive, house-to-house enumeration.
Electors submit enumeration forms; non-returned forms may be marked “Uncollectable”.
Doubtful cases may receive notices from Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) for verification.
Current Status in Telangana
Enumeration ended: August 10, 2026.
Uncollectable: 73,47,075 forms, nearly 22% of the electorate.
Draft rolls: Scheduled for August 17.
Claims and objections will follow publication of the draft rolls.
Why is it Concerning?
Disenfranchisement risk: Genuine voters may be deleted along with ineligible entries.
Burden on voters: Migrants, poor households and hard-to-reach groups may struggle to submit forms.
Short timeline: Limited time to reconcile uncollectable forms before draft publication.
Legal concerns: The process has faced challenges regarding deletion procedures.
Safeguards After Draft Roll
Claims and objections: Voters can seek restoration of wrongly deleted names.
ERO verification: Doubtful cases can be examined before finalisation.
Appeals: Aggrieved voters can approach higher electoral authorities and courts.
Constitutional & Legal Framework
Article 324: Gives the Election Commission of India (ECI) superintendence, direction and control over elections and electoral rolls.
Article 325: Provides for one general electoral roll and prohibits exclusion on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex.
Article 326: Provides for adult suffrage.
Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RPA 1950): Governs preparation and revision of electoral rolls.
Registration of Electors Rules, 1960: Provides procedures for claims, objections and revision.
Back2Basics: Election Commission of India
Type: Constitutional body under Article 324.
Established: 1950.
Composition: Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners.
Mandate: Conducts elections to Parliament, State legislatures, and the offices of President and Vice-President.
Role in rolls: Conducts summary and intensive revisions to maintain accurate electoral rolls.
Challenges
Wrongful deletion of genuine voters.
Exclusion of migrants and seasonal workers.
Duplicate, dead and ineligible entries.
Compressed timelines for verification and objections.
Documentation burden on vulnerable voters.
Loss of public trust due to perceived lack of transparency.
[2017] For election to the Lok Sabha, a nomination paper can be filed by
(a) Anyone residing in India
(b) A resident of the constituency from which the election is to be contested
(c) Any citizen of India whose name appears in the electoral roll of a constituency
The Supreme Court is examining the constitutional validity of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, which gives the executive a majority in the CEC selection committee. The Court has reserved its decision on whether to refer the matter to a Constitution Bench.
What is the CEC Selection Committee under the 2023 Act?
The Act provides for a three-member selection committee comprising:
Prime Minister (Chairperson)
Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister
Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha
What changed?
The Act replaced the Chief Justice of India (CJI) with a Cabinet Minister.
This gives the executive two out of three votes, with the Opposition holding one.
What is the Anoop Baranwal Judgment (2023)?
Delivered by a five-judge Constitution Bench.
Held that until Parliament enacted a law, the CEC and Election Commissioners should be appointed by a committee comprising:
Prime Minister
Leader of the Opposition
Chief Justice of India
The Court stressed that the Election Commission must be independent, neutral, and free from executive control.
Centre’s Arguments
Parliament is competent to decide the appointment process.
The Prime Minister’s office carries constitutional trust.
Courts should not presume bad faith by constitutional authorities.
Replacing the CJI with a Cabinet Minister is within Parliament’s legislative powers.
Supreme Court’s Concerns
The committee lacks a neutral member.
A 2:1 executive majority may affect the perception of independence.
Appointments should not only be fair but also appear to be fair.
[2017] Consider the following statements regarding the Election Commission of India: 1.The ECI is currently a five-member body consisting of the Chief Election Commissioner and four Election Commissioners. 2.The Union Ministry of Home Affairs is the final authority that decides the election schedule for general elections. 3.The ECI is the designated authority to resolve disputes relating to splits or mergers of recognized political parties. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
[UPSC 2024] Examine the need for electoral reforms as suggested by various committees with particular reference to ‘one nation-one election’ principle. Linkage: The PYQ examines reforms required to strengthen India’s electoral democracy and democratic participation.The article argues that constitutional recognition of the right to vote is a foundational electoral reform that would strengthen free and fair elections and deepen democratic legitimacy
Mentor’s Comment
A Congress leader has revived the demand to recognise voting as a fundamental right, reopening a settled constitutional debate. The demand exposes a growing inconsistency between the Supreme Court’s insistence that voting remains a mere statutory right and its own decisions constitutionalising nearly every facet surrounding the vote.
Why has the Supreme Court traditionally treated the right to vote as a statutory right rather than a fundamental right?
Foundational ruling: N.P. Ponnuswami vs Returning Officer (1952) held that the right to vote is not a common law right. Parliament created this right through statute.
Reaffirmation: Jyoti Basu vs Debi Ghosal (1982) held the right to elect is “purely a statutory right.” Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy denied it the status of a fundamental right.
Constitution Bench position: Kuldip Nayar vs Union of India (2006) held that democracy forms part of the basic structure (basic structure doctrine: the principle that certain core features of the Constitution cannot be altered even by a constitutional amendment). It held that the individual right to vote flows from the Representation of the People Acts, not from the Constitution.
Textual basis: Part III of the Constitution does not list the right to vote among the fundamental rights.
Parliamentary latitude: This textual silence gives Parliament wide discretion. Parliament prescribes qualifications, disqualifications, and procedures for elections.
How has judicial interpretation constitutionalised individual facets of voting, and what anomaly does this create?
Right to know: Union of India vs Association for Democratic Reforms (2002) held that voters have a right to know the criminal antecedents, educational qualifications, and financial assets of candidates. The Court grounded this right in Article 19(1)(a).
Freedom to choose: People’s Union of Civil Liberties vs Union of India (2003) held that the freedom to make an informed choice is a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a). The Court retained the position that the right to vote itself is statutory.
Right to reject: The 2013 NOTA judgment held that a voter’s decision to reject all candidates is political expression protected by Article 19(1)(a). The Court extended ballot secrecy to voters who choose not to vote for any candidate.
Emerging judicial view: Justice Ajay Rastogi’s separate opinion in Anoop Baranwal vs Union of India (2023) favoured recognising voting as a fundamental right. This view did not command a majority on the Constitution Bench.
Resulting anomaly: The Court has made the right to know, the freedom to choose, and the right to reject all candidates fundamental. The act of voting itself remains a mere statutory entitlement.
Logical inconsistency: The Constitution protects the right to reject every candidate. Denying protection to the right to choose one is incongruous.
Does recognising a Fundamental Right to vote require removing Parliament’s power to regulate elections?
Limited scope of the claim: Constitutional recognition is not required for every procedural detail of voting. It is required only for the core right to participate in the democratic process.
Regulatory power retained: Parliament continues to prescribe qualifications, disqualifications, and age requirements for elections. Electoral rolls and residency conditions also remain within Parliament’s domain.
Corrupt practices regulation: Disqualification for corrupt practices remains a statutory matter. This regulation is necessary for orderly elections.
Entitlement distinguished from mechanics: The mechanics of voting may remain statutory. The citizen’s underlying entitlement to be a voter need not.
Why does the basic structure doctrine make the statutory classification of voting untenable?
Democracy as basic structure: Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala (1973) held that democracy forms part of the Constitution’s basic structure.
Free elections as essential feature: Indira Nehru Gandhi vs Raj Narain (1975) held that free and fair elections are an essential feature of democracy.
Source of legitimacy: Elections derive legitimacy from citizen participation through the ballot. The vote is the instrument through which popular sovereignty is exercised.
Constitutional source of entitlement: Article 326 mandates elections on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Every citizen above 18 is constitutionally entitled to be registered as an elector, subject only to narrowly defined disqualifications.
Statute merely operationalises: The Representation of the People Acts operationalise the command in Article 326. They do not create the underlying entitlement.
Exclusion as constitutional harm: Exclusion from the electoral roll strikes at a constitutional guarantee. This holds except where exclusion follows constitutionally permissible limitations.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court has extended constitutional protection to the right to know, the freedom to choose, and the right to reject candidates, while continuing to classify the act of voting itself as merely statutory. This position is inconsistent with the Court’s own recognition that democracy and free and fair elections form part of the basic structure. The Court must revisit the Ponnuswami-Jyoti Basu-Kuldip Nayar line of doctrine. The citizen’s entitlement to be a registered elector flows from Article 326 of the Constitution, leaving only the mechanics of voting to statutory regulation.
