💥Mains Ready By December. Smash Mains & Smash PYQ Admissions Open
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Subject: RPAxElectoral Reforms

  • Should voting be a fundamental right?

    Why in the News

    Because the right to vote is only a statutory right, granted by ordinary law rather than the Constitution, voters wrongly kept off the rolls have weak protection, as 97 eligible voters in Goa found when ECINet, the Election Commission of India (EC)‘s centralised software for managing electoral rolls, blocked corrections. This has revived the case for making voting a fundamental right.

    What is the right to vote, and how did India secure it?

    1. What it is: Article 326 gives every adult citizen the vote regardless of gender, caste, religion, education or property, which is universal adult suffrage.
    2. Contrast with the West: The United Kingdom and United States widened the vote over decades. Eg. British women voted from 1928.
    3. Making it work: The first Chief Election Commissioner, Sukumar Sen, enrolled 173 million largely illiterate voters, using election symbols they could recognise.
    4. Two laws: The Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RPA) governs electoral rolls; the 1951 Act governs elections and candidature.
    5. The takeaway: India gave everyone the vote at once, but the legal status of that vote was left open.

    How have the framers and courts classified it?

    1. Constituent Assembly choice: B.R. Ambedkar and K.T. Shah proposed placing it among fundamental rights; the Advisory Committee rejected the idea.
    2. Statutory right: In Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India (2006), a five judge Constitution Bench held the right to elect a statutory right. It rests on Section 62 of the RPA, 1951.
    3. Conflicting smaller Bench: A two judge Bench in Rajbala v. State of Haryana (2015) called it a constitutional right, but the larger Kuldip Nayar Bench prevails.
    4. Question not reopened: Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023) declined to reopen it. Justice Ajay Rastogi’s dissent placed the vote in free expression (Article 19(1)(a)) and life and liberty (Article 21).
    5. Democratic imperative: Courts treat voting as inseparable from democracy. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973) made democracy part of the basic structure, the core Parliament cannot amend away.

    What did the Goa episode expose?

    1. A split Commission: Two Election Commissioners recorded 14 objections over 10 months against the Chief Election Commissioner over unilateral rule changes, voter deletions and centralised data access.
    2. Decision rules: The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 seeks unanimity. Where members differ, the majority decides.
    3. Software over officers: ECINet stopped Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), the local officials who maintain rolls, from reversing wrong deletions. Their emails flagged this, but entries stayed deleted.
    4. Loss beyond the ballot: The Goa Mediclaim Scheme uses the rolls for eligibility, so deletion costs that benefit too.

    Why do accurate rolls matter, and where does the law fall short?

    1. Constitutional guardian: Article 324 gives the EC superintendence, direction and control of elections. Section 21 of the RPA, 1950 empowers it to revise rolls.
    2. Who may register: Section 19 entitles any citizen aged 18 or above, “ordinarily resident” (normally living) in a constituency and not disqualified, to be enrolled.
    3. High bar for courts: Courts intervene only where roll errors “materially affected” the result, so a few excluded voters are not enough.
    4. Role of parties: Lakshmi Charan Sen v. A.K.M. Hassan Uzzaman (1985) urged parties to help keep rolls accurate.
    5. A design failure: The Goa exclusion came from software design, not a clerical slip, so this “substantial versus isolated” test misses it.

    What would fundamental right status change?

    1. Rooted in the Constitution: Scholars argue the vote flows from the Constitution itself, so any law regulating it must conform to Articles 325 and 326.
    2. Stricter review: Fundamental status keeps the EC’s power to clean rolls but invites heightened judicial review, meaning stricter court scrutiny of deletions.

    Challenges

    1. Settled precedent: Only a larger Bench can overturn Kuldip Nayar.
    2. Dilution by Parliament: A statutory right can be narrowed by an ordinary amendment to the RPA, 1951, with no constitutional bar.
    3. Weak remedies: An excluded voter has only the EC’s internal correction process to rely on.

    Way Forward

    1. Larger Bench reference: The Supreme Court should refer the vote’s legal status to a seven judge Bench.
    2. Officer override: Let EROs overrule automated deletions, with an audit trail.
    3. Time bound correction: Fix a deadline for restoring wrongly deleted voters, with appeal to a named officer.

    Conclusion

    A vote that exists only by statute leaves voters exposed, as the Goa exclusion showed. Whether a larger Bench reopens the question will decide if the vote becomes a fundamental right.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Disquiet within, all three Election Commissioners meet, take first steps

    Why in the News

    The Election Commission of India has announced nine decisions answering objections its two Election Commissioners filed over ten months, at its first full meeting since a reported divide became public. Voters served notices in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls need no longer attend a hearing.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision doing to voters?

    1. What the revision is: A Special Intensive Revision rebuilds the roll instead of updating it, so a listed voter must prove eligibility again. It works like a fresh registration drive.
    2. Who gets a notice: A notice goes to a voter absent from the earlier roll who could name no parent, marked unmapped, or to one the software flags as inconsistent, a logical discrepancy.
    3. How far it has run: The revision is complete in twenty States and Union Territories. Anyone left out may apply to the Electoral Registration Officer, who decides roll entries.
    4. The takeaway: The burden of proof has moved from the administration to the voter, so a software flag can endanger an elector’s name.

    What has the Commission now decided?

    1. No hearing for a noticed voter: Booth Level Officers will collect documents at home and upload them on ECINet, the Commission’s roll portal, instead of a hearing.
    2. Hearings only by exception: Any hearing still needed is held preferably online, and any adult family member may attend for the elector.
    3. Meetings and approvals on record: Agendas will be circulated and minutes issued for every meeting, officers’ foreign travel needs approval, and Commissioners’ directions must be obeyed.
    4. Systems put under review: New technology modules go to a Committee of Officers. A committee under a Senior Deputy Election Commissioner, with an independent expert, will audit ECINet against the Acts and Rules.
    5. Access for field officers: Field officers keep role based access matching their statutory powers, with more flexibility enabled if required.

    What had the two Commissioners put on record?

    1. A body that decides by majority: The Commission is constituted under Article 324 and has decided by majority as a three member body since 1993.
    2. Objections on file: The two Commissioners objected at least fourteen times, on registration, deletion, restoration, appeals against restorations, and control of the roll systems.
    3. Treated as suggestions: The notes were recorded as suggestions covering uncirculated agendas, unapproved travel, denied access to ERONet, the officers’ roll system, and a work redistribution order never carried out.

    What do the nine decisions leave unanswered?

    1. The enrolment form declaration: A declaration added to Form 6, the enrolment application under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, is withdrawn except inside the revision.
    2. The online form goes unmentioned: The question on an applicant’s parents sits in the online Form 6. Only the Law Ministry can amend it, and the note omits whether it stays.
    3. A contested claim about the Court: The Commission says the Supreme Court upheld the declaration, a reading the court’s order does not support.
    4. West Bengal appeals unexplained: The note does not say who authorised appeals against voters judicial officers had cleared.
    5. Goa’s missing electors: Ninety seven electors cleared locally were absent from Goa’s final roll, and eighty one have reapplied. The note does not say why Goa’s restoration facility was never enabled.

    Challenges

    1. Equal say, unequal tenure: The Commission decides by majority, yet only the Chief Election Commissioner has a Supreme Court judge’s removal protection, and an Election Commissioner goes on his recommendation.
    2. A software flag with legal consequence: A centralised program generates the notice that puts a name at risk, and the elector cannot see the flagging rule.
    3. Deletion is faster than restoration: A name removed in a revision returns only through a fresh application, so an error costs the voter a vote.
    4. The registering authority as adversary: Where the Commission appeals against inclusions ordered by statutory officers, an elector must contest the body keeping the roll.

    Way Forward

    1. Publish the flagging logic: Publish the rules by which the software flags a discrepancy, so an elector can answer the notice.
    2. A reasoned order before deletion: Require the Electoral Registration Officer to pass a written, appealable order before removing a name.
    3. Minute the dissent: Record each Commissioner’s position in every meeting’s minutes, so a majority decision is visible as one.

    Conclusion

    Procedure inside the Commission has been repaired and the decisions that produced the dispute stand. What remains unsettled is whether two members who recorded objections now carry weight on the next decision.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Conflict and consensus: The rupture in the poll panel

    Why in the News

    The functioning of the three member Election Commission of India (ECI) is under scrutiny after an investigation reported that two Election Commissioners placed objections on record at least 14 times in 10 months. The poll body has responded that its decisions have been unanimous. It describes the recorded entries as observations that form part of the deliberative process. The dispute is over whether a recorded objection is a dissent or a step inside a deliberation that ends in agreement.

    How does the Election Commission take decisions?

    1. Article 324: Article 324 of the Constitution vests the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and of the conduct of elections in the Commission. It covers elections to Parliament, to the legislature of every State and to the offices of President and Vice President.
    2. Composition: The Commission consists of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and such number of other Election Commissioners as the President may appoint, subject to the provisions of law. The CEC acts as the Chairman of the Commission.
    3. Section 17: Section 17 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 requires the business of the Commission to be transacted in accordance with that Act.
    4. Section 18: Section 18 requires all business of the Commission to be transacted unanimously as far as possible. A matter on which the CEC and the other Election Commissioners differ is decided by the opinion of the majority.
    5. Equal voting rights: All three members hold one vote each, and the CEC is the first among equals. Two of the three can therefore decide a matter that is not settled unanimously.

    What does the record of past differences show?

    1. The 1993 expansion: The Commission was permanently expanded from a single member body to a three member commission in 1993. Differences have emerged between the individuals holding the posts since then.
    2. T.N. Seshan vs Union of India (1995): The then Chief Election Commissioner had challenged the appointment of the two Election Commissioners in the Supreme Court. The Court upheld the appointment and ruled that the three members hold equal status and an equal say in decision making.
    3. The 2009 removal request: In January 2009 the then Chief Election Commissioner wrote to the President seeking the removal of an Election Commissioner, citing a lack of political neutrality. No such action followed, and that Commissioner was later appointed Chief Election Commissioner.
    4. The 2019 dissent: The majority view in 2019 gave the Prime Minister and the then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party a clean chit on complaints of Model Code of Conduct violations. A member of the Commission recorded a dissent against that view, and objected that his dissent notes were not being carried into the final orders passed by the Commission.
    5. The 2020 resignation: That member was in line to take over as Chief Election Commissioner on the basis of seniority. He opted to resign from the Commission in 2020.

    How is a dissent distinguished from an observation?

    1. Recording a dissent: An Election Commissioner who disagrees with the majority view can record a dissent note on the file.
    2. The observation on the draft revision order: Before the Commission issued the order starting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls on 24 June 2025, an Election Commissioner observed on the draft order that the exercise should not lead to harassment of voters and citizens. The recorded wording asked that genuine voters and citizens, particularly the old, the sick, persons with disabilities, the poor and other vulnerable groups, should not feel harassed and should be facilitated.
    3. Treated as an observation: That entry was treated as an observation rather than a dissent, and the revision order was eventually unanimous.
    4. Objections recorded since: The two Election Commissioners have recorded objections on files several times since. The subjects include the functioning of the poll body’s information technology infrastructure and the insertion of a new declaration in the voter enrolment form, Form 6.
    5. Routine differences: Differing opinions on matters before the Commission are a routine occurrence, on the conduct of elections and on administrative matters alike. The Commission meets once or twice a week to discuss pending matters.

    What has the Election Commission said?

    1. Observations as standard practice: Operational queries or inputs raised by members of the Commission at the draft stage are described as standard administrative practice aimed at safeguarding voter rights. The suggestions given by the Commissioners are described as being for further improving the electoral processes.
    2. Part of the decision making process: Differing views and observations are described as a normal part of deliberation in any institution, arriving before a final decision is taken.
    3. Every officer may suggest: Every officer of the Commission, and not only the three Commissioners, is authorised to give suggestions for improving the electoral system.
    4. Unanimity claimed: All decisions taken in recent months are described as the outcome of unanimous decisions. The Commission cited the recent elections in Bihar, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Assam and West Bengal in support.

    Conclusion

    The statute makes unanimity a preference and a majority decision lawful, so a recorded difference inside the poll body is not by itself a breach of procedure. What the record cannot settle is whether an entry on a file is a suggestion or a refusal to agree, because the Commission alone decides how that entry is finally described. Past differences ended in a resignation, in an appointment and in a court ruling on equal status, never in a published account of who disagreed with what. A requirement that a dissent be carried into the final order is the change that would put that description beyond the Commission’s own choice.

    Back2Basics: Model Code of Conduct

    1. What it is: The Model Code of Conduct is a set of non statutory norms agreed upon by political parties. It exists to prevent the ruling party from misusing state machinery and to curb unethical campaign practices.
    2. Duration: It takes effect the moment the poll body announces the election schedule and remains in force until the results are declared.
    3. Penalties: The Code carries no statutory penal provision. The Commission can issue warnings, censure a candidate or delay a poll, and criminal violations such as bribery and hate speech are prosecuted under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
    4. Evolution: It began in 1960 as a short set of instructions for the Kerala Assembly elections. It was consolidated into its present form in 1991.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2017] Consider the following statements: 1. The Election Commission of India is a ‘ five-member body. 2. Union Ministry of Home Affairs decides the election schedule for the conduct of both general elections and bye-elections. 3. Election Commission resolves the disputes relating to splits/mergers of recognized political parties. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ? (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 3 only Answer: (d)”

  • Declaration part of Form 6 changed since SIR in Bihar

    Why in the News

    The declaration attached to Form 6, the application for fresh registration as a voter, has changed substantially across the phases of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. A first time applicant must now furnish details drawn from the last revision. The declaration itself was introduced during the first phase of the revision in Bihar. Two Election Commissioners flagged the change in separate notes and letters in May 2026 and in August 2026. The dispute is whether an addition of this kind could be made at all without the Union government amending the rule the form sits inside.

    What is Form 6?

    1. Purpose of the form: Form 6 is the application a person files for inclusion in the electoral roll as a new voter. The Election Commission of India (ECI) uses it for fresh voter registrations.
    2. Statutory status: Form 6 is attached to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. It therefore carries the legal force of that rule and not of an administrative form.

    What did the first phase declaration ask for?

    1. Birth period brackets: The declaration used in Bihar sought to confirm the exact period of a new voter’s birth. The three brackets were birth before 1987, birth between 1987 and 2004, and birth after 2004.
    2. Applicants born before 1 July 1987: Only the applicant’s own document was needed to prove date or place of birth.
    3. Applicants born between 1 July 1987 and 2 December 2004: The applicant needed their own document along with one parent’s document, of either the father or the mother.
    4. Applicants born after 2 December 2004: The applicant needed their own document along with documents for both parents establishing date or place of birth.
    5. Parent who is not an Indian citizen: A copy of that parent’s passport and visa, valid at the time of the applicant’s birth, also had to be submitted.

    How did the declaration change in the later phases?

    1. Names in the last revision: In the second phase, a new voter filling Form 6 had to declare whether their own name or their parents’ names appeared in the last SIR.
    2. Constituency, booth and serial numbers: The applicant also had to give the assembly constituency number, the polling booth number and the serial number at which those names appeared in the electoral rolls of the last SIR.
    3. The third option on ECINet: An applicant without that information could choose a third option when filling the form online on the ECINet portal.
    4. Mandatory in practice: The field was not formally marked mandatory. An applicant could not submit the online form without completing it.
    5. Continuation into the third phase: The addition continued into the third phase of the revision. That phase was announced in May this year.

    Who has the power to change Form 6?

    1. Limits on the poll body: The ECI cannot redesign the form on its own, because the form is part of a rule it did not make.
    2. The amending authority: Only the Union government can amend the rules, acting through the Ministry of Law and Justice. The rules are made under the Representation of the People Act, 1950.

    What is the Commission’s account of the change?

    1. Approval by the full Commission: The stated position of the ECI is that adding a separate declaration form with Form 6 and with Form 8, the form used for changing particulars, was approved by the full three member Commission when the revision began in Bihar. It was ratified again in the later phases.
    2. The form itself unamended: The Commission’s account is that Form 6 was never amended and that only a declaration was added alongside it.
    3. The change in the online module: The change in the online module was made so that a person filling the form does not have to sign electronically twice.
    4. Judicial approval cited: The Commission cites a Supreme Court order of 27 May upholding the power to add the declaration form.

    Conclusion

    The declaration now asks a first time applicant for information from a revision they may never have been part of. What remains unresolved is whether an addition that operates as a condition of registration can be made without the Union government amending the rule it sits inside. The objections recorded inside the poll body put that question to the institution itself and not only to the courts. The next phase of the revision is where the answer will show.

    Back2Basics: Special Intensive Revision

    1. What it is: A Special Intensive Revision is a time bound enumeration, with Booth Level Officers visiting households in person. The routine annual exercise, the Summary Revision, carries no such door to door verification of every entry.
    2. Legal basis: Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 authorises the poll body to carry out a special revision of the electoral roll at any time, for reasons recorded in writing.
    3. Objectives: The exercise verifies the residence of every registered voter, removes deceased, duplicate and shifted entries, and registers citizens who have newly turned 18.
    4. History: Intensive revisions have been carried out about 14 times. Eg. The exercises of 1983, 1995, 2002 and 2004, and the current cycle.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • [25th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: The murky world of political party finance

    [25th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: The murky world of political party finance

    Question (2025, GS2 – 10 Marks): Discuss the ‘corrupt practices’ for the purpose of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Analyze whether the increase in the assets of the legislators and/or their associates, disproportionate to their known sources of income, would constitute ‘undue influence’ and consequently a corrupt practice.
    Linkage: A sudden 223% surge in the declared income of unrecognised political parties—many of which do not contest elections—raises grave concerns about financial opacity, money laundering, and misuse of tax-exempt conduits. This question examines how disproportionate financial growth intersects with corrupt practices under the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951.

    Mentor Comment

    An investigation has revealed extraordinary donations received by six Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPPs), which hold registration with the Election Commission of India (ECI) but have earned no electoral recognition. The disclosure follows a report of 18 July 2025 by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) finding a 223 per cent rise in the declared income of RUPPs in the 2022 to 2023 financial year. Political parties hold no independent place in the Constitution, yet they receive donations and carry a standing income tax exemption on them. The ECI is the sole custodian under the law of the fate and fortunes of political parties, and it can neither deregister a party nor audit its accounts as a matter of routine. The contested point is whether that regulatory authority is genuinely absent or simply unused.

    What is the legal status of a political party in India?

    1. Constitutional position: The Constitution does not mention political parties, except in the Tenth Schedule. They carry no independent constitutional standing.
    2. Legal character: Parties exist as “associations” in furtherance of the fundamental rights under Article 19. No attempt has been made to make them conform to the legal character of a company, trust, society, firm or not for profit company.
    3. Tax treatment: Parties enjoy income tax exemption on an unparalleled scale. The treatment of a registered party’s income is governed by Section 13A of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
    4. Consequence of the gap: A body with no fixed legal form and a standing tax exemption receives money without the reporting obligations attached to any of the forms it declines to take.

    What does the registration and recognition framework regulate?

    1. Registration format: ECI guidelines prescribe the format for registration under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Paragraph 3(xxiii) requires a party seeking registration to declare in its constitution that it will contest elections within five years of registration.
    2. The non contesting condition: The same paragraph provides that a party which does not contest elections continuously for six years shall be automatically taken off the list of recognised parties.
    3. Recognition: Order 6 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 distinguishes recognised from unrecognised parties for the purpose of allotting symbols, and lays down the criteria for classification.
    4. The withdrawal power: Order 16A of the same Order empowers the ECI to suspend or withdraw the recognition of a recognised party for failing to observe the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) or the Commission’s lawful directions.

    Why has that framework produced no enforcement?

    1. A warning issued in 1994: An order of 16 October 1994 under the Election Symbols Order recorded the “adhocism” and the “sorry state of affairs prevailing in almost all political parties in the country”, whether recognised national or State parties or registered unrecognised parties.
    2. No party following its own rules: The same order recorded that the Commission had yet to come across any party whose affairs were run in accordance with the provisions of its own constitution or rules.
    3. A notice with no sequel: The order put all parties on “notice” to set their house in order and declared that the ECI would not remain a “mute spectator”. The Order 16A power it created has since sat in the statute book unused.
    4. Compliance by submission: Submitting accounts is enough to comply with the letter of the law. The ECI lacks the mandate, intent or wherewithal to question accounts that are mechanically submitted.
    5. The Right to Information order left unenforced: Parties united in resisting the 2013 order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) bringing them under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Neither the ECI nor the Supreme Court has shown any inclination to enforce that order.
    6. Tax and enforcement agencies looking elsewhere: The Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate do not treat scrutiny of party accounts as a priority in the way they treat ordinary taxpayers.

    Why does delisting leave the money flowing?

    1. Delisting is not deregistration: Taking a party off the list does not remove it from the register. The ECI is not generally empowered to deregister political parties.
    2. What the ECI has actually done: A press note of 9 August 2025, “Cleaning up the Electoral System”, recorded that the ECI had delisted 334 RUPPs out of 2,854 as part of a continuous strategy to clean up the electoral system.
    3. Contributions continue regardless: Whether delisted or unrecognised, a party remains eligible to receive contributions under Section 29B of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
    4. The unanswered tax question: Whether donations to delisted parties continued to qualify for tax exemption is a matter for investigation, since the intent behind delisting was to disqualify them.
    5. Disclosure is largely absent: Of 2,764 RUPPs, only 739 submitted their financial records for the year to the ECI.

    What is the scale of political wealth the accounts reveal?

    1. Funds at the 2024 general election: 22 political parties collectively held Rs 18,742.31 crore at their disposal for the 2024 general election. That included funds already in their kitty when the election was announced.
    2. Donations during the campaign: Rs 7,416.31 crore was raised in donations between the announcement of the election and its completion.
    3. What was spent and what was kept: These parties incurred Rs 3,861.57 crore in election related expenditure during the campaign period. They retained Rs 14,848.46 crore afterwards as cash in hand, bank balances and fixed deposits.
    4. Declared donations over a decade: Declared donations rose from Rs 714 crore across 43 parties in 2015 to 2016, to Rs 7,203 crore across 27 parties in 2023 to 2024.
    5. The revenue cost: The exchequer lost Rs 11,813 crore in taxes over the last decade through exemptions for political donations.
    6. Who claims the exemption: Individual donors and Hindu Undivided Families have overtaken corporates in donating to political parties. In the 2022 to 2023 financial year individual donors claimed exemptions worth Rs 2,275.85 crore, against corporate claims of Rs 514.4 crore and Rs 115.71 crore from firms and associations.
    7. Donations claimed without relief: Only 41.76 per cent of total donations, Rs 8,287 crore over nine years, were claimed as tax exempt. The incentive driving the remaining share to donate without claiming relief is not visible in any disclosure.

    What did the electoral bonds scheme leave unresolved?

    1. The scheme and its end: Electoral bonds were introduced in 2018 and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2024.
    2. Disclosure without answers: The donation details disclosed after the judgment raised questions that remain unanswered.
    3. RUPPs were outside the scheme: Electoral bonds were restricted to parties that had secured at least 1 per cent of the votes in the latest Lok Sabha or State Legislative Assembly elections, so most RUPPs were never eligible to receive them.
    4. The question that follows: Donations now traced to six ineligible RUPPs therefore arrived through some other route, and neither the donors nor their purpose sits on any public record.

    Challenges to the regulation of political party finance

    1. Party registration used as a laundering route: Registering a party creates a vehicle that can receive money and claim exemption without ever contesting an election. Eg. Registered political parties now exceed 2,800, and setting one up has been used to legitimise unaccounted money and evade tax.
      The Fix: Establish an automatic procedure to deregister any RUPP that does not contest elections in accordance with the Commission’s guidelines.
    2. No power to deregister: The Commission cannot remove a party from its register as a matter of routine, so the only available sanction is a delisting that changes nothing about the money. Eg. A 2002 Supreme Court judgment holds that the ECI cannot review its own registration orders, leaving deregistration to a court direction on grounds of fraud or constitutional violation.
      The Fix: Give the Commission a statutory power to deregister, exercised on a recorded finding and subject to appeal.
    3. Accounts that nobody audits: Party accounts are submitted rather than examined, so the figures in them are never tested against an independent record. Eg. Article 324 was described by the Supreme Court in Kanhiya Lal Omar vs R.K. Trivedi and Others as a “reservoir of authority” for the ECI, and that authority has not been turned on party accounts.
      The Fix: Order political parties to have their accounts audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) or its nominee, using the Article 324 power.
    4. No ceiling on party expenditure: Candidate spending is capped but party spending is not, so expenditure simply moves from the candidate’s account to the party’s. Eg. The ECI has recommended a limit on party expenditure during elections repeatedly and has not imposed one.
      The Fix: Impose a limit on party expenditure during elections and confine tax exemption on donations to that prescribed limit, taxing every donation above it in full.
    5. Electoral bond disclosures left unexamined: The donation records released after the scheme was struck down have not been tested against the decisions those donations preceded. Eg. Petitions alleging quid pro quo in the electoral bonds saga remain pending before the Supreme Court.
      The Fix: Order a court monitored probe into the electoral bonds saga and into RUPPs that receive and spend large contributions without participating substantially in elections.
    6. Financial data in no common format: Each party files in its own format, so no comparison across parties or across years is possible from the filings themselves. Eg. A party spending crores as “administrative expenses” discloses nothing that can be set against another party’s filing.
      The Fix: Develop a centralised digital portal on which every registered party uploads its financial data in standardised formats.

    Conclusion

    Regulation of political money in India fails at the point of legal form rather than at the point of disclosure. A body that is neither a company, a trust nor a society owes none of the accounts that any of those forms would owe, and a disclosure rule written for an entity with no fixed form cannot be made to bite. The authority to close that gap already sits with the Commission and with the Court, which is why the question is one of will rather than of power. The marker to watch is whether the pending electoral bonds petitions produce a monitored investigation, or another set of disclosures with no examination attached.

    Political Finance Regulation in India

    1. The party hierarchy: Parties move from unregistered, to registered unrecognised, to recognised State party, to recognised national party. Each step upward is earned by electoral performance.
    2. The disclosure threshold: Section 29C of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 requires every party to disclose all donations above Rs 20,000 annually to the ECI.
    3. Income from unnamed sources: Over 60 per cent of party income often comes from sources the party is not required to name.
    4. The candidate expenditure ceiling: The official expenditure limit for a Lok Sabha seat is Rs 95 lakh, raised from Rs 25,000 in 1951 to 1952.

  • EC’s expanded logical discrepancy list for third phase of SIR keeps voters on their toes

    Why in the News

    The Election Commission of India (ECI) has expanded the list of “logical discrepancies” used to flag electors in the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to up to 11 distinct categories. The categories have been identified and applied across States and Union Territories including Karnataka, Haryana, Delhi and Telangana. The list has grown from the original four categories used when the concept was introduced during West Bengal’s SIR. A flagged elector must prove eligibility to stay on the roll, and the flag is generated by a centralised system rather than by field verification. The contested point is that the term has never been defined in any official communication, so an elector cannot know in advance what will trigger it.

    What is a “logical discrepancy” under the SIR?

    1. What the term describes: A logical discrepancy is an inconsistency the Commission’s software detects between an elector’s entry and the entries of that elector’s relatives on the base roll.
    2. How it is generated: The software attempts “progeny mapping”, linking a voter to their parents’ entries on the base roll, and flags the inconsistencies that result.
    3. What a flag does to the elector: A flagged elector receives a notice and must establish eligibility to remain on the roll. A place in the draft list does not prevent the flag.
    4. Origin of the category: The category first surfaced during the SIR in West Bengal and was carried into the current phase.

    Which categories does the expanded list carry?

    1. Sibling age gap: An age gap of less than nine months between siblings is treated as a discrepancy.
    2. Parent age gap: An age gap of less than 15 years between a voter and their parent is flagged.
    3. Grandparent age gap: An age gap of less than 40 years between a voter and their grandparent is flagged.
    4. Sibling count: More than six siblings linked with a single parent is flagged.
    5. Parent name variation: A discrepancy or spelling variation in a parent’s name between the current electoral roll and the previous revision is flagged.
    6. Relative mapping change: A change in relative mapping between revisions is flagged, such as a father recorded in the previous roll against a mother in the current roll.
    7. Marital mapping mismatch: A female voter linked to her father in the previous roll and mapped to her husband in the current roll without cross referencing is flagged.
    8. Age progression discrepancy: An implausible age leap, or a mathematical discrepancy between different revision cycles, is flagged.

    How does ERONet flag a discrepancy, and who controls it?

    1. The flagging system: Discrepancies are flagged under a centralised artificial intelligence system through ERONet, the Electoral Roll Officers’ Network.
    2. Centralisation flagged internally: Two Election Commissioners have flagged the ERONet software for having become increasingly centralised.
    3. Officers locked out: Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have complained that they are unable to access the platform from their end in many cases, according to the two Commissioners.

    Why has the category never been defined?

    1. No definition in any official communication: “Logical discrepancies” has never been clearly defined in any official communication, neither in the Commission’s notice of May 2026 nor in the original SIR order of June 2025.
    2. Parameters not documented: The actual parameters and the methodology used to assign an elector to the category were not publicly documented.
    3. Effect on the elector: An elector cannot contest a classification whose criteria are unavailable, so the burden of proving eligibility falls on a person who cannot see the test being applied.

    What has the Right to Information route produced?

    1. A trade secret claim: The Commission was described as “hiding” details of the software on the ground that it was a “trade secret”, by a former Member of Parliament who is a Right to Information (RTI) Act activist.
    2. Refusal on commercial grounds: RTI applications seeking details of the software were refused, with the Commission claiming that disclosure would affect “commercial confidence”.
    3. The objection recorded: The software was described as an opaque algorithm used to delete voters through a centralised system in Delhi, bypassing the EROs. Software used by a public authority being kept secret for commercial interests was the specific objection raised.

    How many electors has the list touched?

    1. West Bengal: Approximately 1.36 crore voters received notices when the logical discrepancy category first surfaced during West Bengal’s SIR.
    2. Delhi: 19.33 lakh electors have received discrepancy notices in Delhi, where the SIR is being conducted currently.
    3. Karnataka: 20.35 lakh electors have received the notices in Karnataka.

    Conclusion

    The third phase of the SIR is running with an expanded discrepancy list whose criteria the Commission has not published and whose software it has declined to describe. Electors are being asked to rebut a classification they cannot examine, and the officers statutorily responsible for the roll report that they cannot reach the system generating it. The next milestone is whether the Commission publishes the parameters and the methodology behind the category before the phase closes, or whether the classification is settled case by case through the notice and appeal process.

    Back2Basics: Electoral roll machinery of the Election Commission

    1. Chief Electoral Officer: The Chief Electoral Officer supervises the preparation and maintenance of electoral rolls at the State level.
    2. District Election Officer: The District Election Officer carries the same responsibility at the district level.
    3. Electoral Registration Officer: The Electoral Registration Officer is the officer responsible for the roll of a constituency.
    4. Booth Level Officer: Booth Level Officers work at the polling booth level and carry out the door to door verification during a revision.

    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?”

  • Rethink or abandon SIR. Revelations about ECI take lid off electoral upheaval

    Why in the News

    Two Election Commissioners formally recorded written objections at least 14 times over 10 months against decisions taken by the Chief Election Commissioner. The objections red flagged unilateral and “unauthorised” changes to new voter registration forms. They also opposed mass voter deletions under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The SIR was presented as a routine technical cleanup of the rolls maintained by the Election Commission of India (ECI). It has instead grown into a verification exercise that places the burden of proving eligibility on long standing voters. The contested point is whether an exercise its own multi member commission did not settle unanimously can still be defended as neutral administration.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls?

    1. Nature of the exercise: A Special Intensive Revision is a time bound house to house verification of every entry on an electoral roll. It replaces routine updating with fresh enumeration forms for all voters.
    2. What it verifies: Booth Level Officers (BLOs) verify documents at the door, delete entries found ineligible and add omitted voters. Citizenship credentials are checked as part of that verification.
    3. The mapping baseline: Entries in the current roll are mapped against an earlier roll treated as the baseline. The third phase uses the 2002 electoral rolls for that comparison.

    How large is the contraction the third phase has produced?

    1. Delhi’s affected share: More than half of Delhi’s existing voters, 54.6 per cent, have either been struck off the roll or served notices asking them to prove they are genuine. Over 80 lakh of the Capital’s 1.45 crore registered voters are under ECI scrutiny.
    2. Deletion categories: About 47.5 lakh voters have been marked for deletion under the categories of Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate.
    3. Technical flags: A further 33.13 lakh have been flagged for operational and technical errors. That figure includes 19.33 lakh marked for “logical discrepancies” and 13.80 lakh left unmapped against the 2002 rolls.
    4. Notice volume: Over 31.6 lakh notices had been generated by mid September.
    5. Spread across States: Electoral rolls are shrinking by over 15 per cent across 17 of the 19 States and Union Territories in the third phase of the SIR.
    6. National projection: Overall deletions could remove 12 to 13 crore voters nationwide. Maharashtra alone is expected to lose up to 2 crore voters.
    7. Steepest contractions: Delhi’s roll is shrinking by 35.89 per cent and Chandigarh’s by 31.84 per cent.

    Why does the ECI’s own data cut against a technical cleanup?

    1. Deletions before the SIR: Between January 2025 and June 2026, before the SIR was launched, 1.1 million Delhi voters were dropped from the rolls with no explanation offered.
    2. Departure from the addition trend: Around 4,00,000 voters were added between the 2020 Assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha polls. A similar number joined between the 2024 general election and the 2025 State polls.
    3. Population moving the other way: India’s adult population has expanded from 99 crore in 2024 to an estimated 103 crore today. A roll that contracts while the adult population grows inverts the expected direction.
    4. Projected electorate: Analysts project that the national electorate could contract to 88 crore, disenfranchising up to 15 crore citizens.
    5. Rolls smaller than turnout: In Delhi, 24 of 70 Assembly constituencies now count fewer registered electors than the number of voters who actually cast ballots in the 2025 Assembly elections.
    6. A single booth: In polling booth 33 of the Chandni Chowk constituency, 908 of 909 voters were marked for deletion.

    Does the non discriminatory defence survive the notice list?

    1. Who the list caught: The notice list flagged the Delhi Chief Minister and her predecessor, the External Affairs Minister, a serving Election Commissioner and a serving Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Former holders of the offices of Vice President, Chief Justice, Army Chief and Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) were flagged as well.
    2. The ECI’s reading: The ECI cites this spread as proof that the process is not discriminatory.
    3. Why the spread proves little: Ministers, judges and senior officials hold the institutional access and resources to get a technical flag corrected quickly. The same flag pushes an ordinary citizen into an administrative process with no comparable route out.

    Where do the flagged “logical discrepancies” actually originate?

    1. Errors inside the ECI’s own databases: Many flagged discrepancies originate in the ECI’s internal records rather than in anything a voter did. A coding error converted a father’s recorded age of 45 to zero, and a clerk’s misspelling of a name created an artificial “logical discrepancy”.
    2. The 2002 baseline carries its own errors: A former Chief Election Commissioner has criticised treating the 2002 roll as an unassailable baseline for voter mapping, noting that even his own father’s name was misspelt in the 2002 data.
    3. Software deletions with welfare consequences: In Goa the ECI’s software eliminated large numbers of legitimate voters and cut them off from benefits ranging from dialysis to transplants, for which only voters are eligible.
    4. The West Bengal error rate: In West Bengal 27 lakh voters were flagged for tribunal review over alleged “logical discrepancies”. Of 82,000 cases adjudicated, Right to Information (RTI) disclosures showed 91 per cent had been wrongly deleted and had to be restored.
    5. What the error rate implies: Nine wrong deletions in every ten adjudicated cases put the reliability of the flagging algorithm itself in question.

    Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision

    1. Quasi judicial power delegated to field enumerators: Booth Level Officers are effectively tasked with verifying the citizenship credentials of long standing voters, a determination they have no training to make. Eg. In Uttar Pradesh field verification by Booth Level Officers was reported to be cursory, with forms collected in bulk and without individual verification.
      The Fix: Route every citizenship doubt to the Electoral Registration Officer with a written order and a reasoned finding, so the determination sits with a designated officer rather than a field enumerator.
    2. Compressed timelines before major polls: The SIR was scheduled for compressed execution immediately before major elections in Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, leaving voters too little time to appeal and rectify. Eg. The ECI has offered no rationale for forcing millions of voters into documentation checks just weeks before they are due to vote.
      The Fix: Fix a minimum gap between the publication of a final roll and the notification of a poll, so an appeal can be heard before the election it affects.
    3. Deletion without individual notice: Unreliable software combined with field discretion converts routine documentation checks into arbitrary purges. Eg. In West Bengal the requirement of individual notice before deletion under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 was alleged to have been violated.
      The Fix: Publish the flagging parameters and require a signed individual notice stating the ground before any name is removed.
    4. Legality settled while fairness is not: The Supreme Court has upheld the legality of the SIR, so the exercise continues while its fairness is contested outside court. Eg. A former Election Commissioner and a former Chief Election Commissioner have both openly questioned the exercise’s fairness.
      The Fix: Require the Commission to publish a reasoned majority order for every contested SIR decision, so a fairness objection has a document to attach itself to.
    5. An exceptional exercise launched without a stated trigger: An intensive revision is exceptional and is triggered only where rolls have remained largely unchanged for years or large scale irregularities are suspected. Eg. The nationwide SIR was announced within six months of a clean January 2025 summary revision, with no new justification offered.
      The Fix: Record the specific irregularity that triggers an intensive revision in the order announcing it, so the exceptional character of the exercise is tested at the outset.

    Conclusion

    An electoral roll revision draws its authority from the presumption that the body running it is neutral. A written record of its own members objecting to the decisions removes that presumption, and a judicial finding on legality does not restore it. What remains unreconciled is the Commission’s duty to remove ineligible entries against its duty not to remove eligible ones, with the second carrying no comparable enforcement behind it. The marker to watch is whether the Commission publishes a reasoned majority order for the contested decisions and reopens the appeal window before the next set of polls.

    Electoral Roll Revision in India

    1. Statutory basis: Electoral rolls are prepared and maintained by the ECI under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
    2. Summary revision: This is the routine exercise carried out before every general election to the Lok Sabha, every State Legislative Assembly election and every bye election, against a qualifying date.
    3. Special Summary Revision: An enhanced version run before major elections. It uses targeted campaigns to add voters who have turned 18, remove deceased voters and correct existing entries.
    4. Intensive revision: The exceptional category, used only 13 times since Independence, in 1952, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1966, 1983 to 1984, 1987 to 1989, 1992, 1993, 1995, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Chief Election Commissioner is not the Election Commission of India

    Why in the News

    Decisions issued in the name of the Election Commission of India (ECI) without being placed before two of its three Commissioners are prima facie ultra vires, meaning taken beyond the authority the statute confers. The position answers an investigation reporting that two Election Commissioners recorded objections at least 14 times in 10 months to decisions and orders taken without their knowledge. Those objections covered the registration and deletion of voters, the restoration of names, Form 6, appeals in electoral roll cases, and control over the digital architecture of the rolls. Two of three members are a majority of the Commission, so they were not outvoted. The contested point is no longer whether the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was wise or fair, but whether the decisions taken in the Commission’s name were decisions of the Commission at all.

    How does the Election Commission of India take a decision?

    1. Constitutional vesting: Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission of India. The power is conferred on the body, not on its chairman.
    2. Unanimity as the statutory norm: Section 18(2) of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 requires all business of the Commission to be transacted unanimously as far as possible.
    3. The fallback rule: Where the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners differ, the matter “shall be decided according to the opinion of the majority”.
    4. Allocation of business: Section 18(1) allows the procedure for the transaction and allocation of business to be regulated only by a unanimous decision. A unilaterally settled allocation cannot supply authority for a unilateral decision.

    Why would a bypassed decision be legally vulnerable?

    1. The nature of the defect: A substantive decision the law vests in “the Election Commission”, taken in its name without being placed before the Commission, is void for want of authority.
    2. No cover from an allocation: Such a decision also lacks cover where no lawfully adopted allocation of business authorised a single member to take it. A letterhead does not supply authority the statute withholds.
    3. The governing precedent: T N Seshan vs Union of India (1995) held that the Constitution entrusts elections to the Election Commission and not to an individual. The Court warned that “It would be wrong to project the individual and eclipse the Election Commission.”
    4. A majority is not a dissent: The objections did not come from one Commissioner differing with two colleagues. They came from two of three members, which is the number the statute makes decisive.

    Which specific decisions are in question?

    1. Form 6 alteration: An Election Commissioner recorded in May that Form 6, prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, could not be altered by an SIR direction without amending the Rules. The second Commissioner concurred, and the altered form appeared on ECINet regardless.
    2. A recorded majority against the change: In August one of them called the change “unauthorised/illegal” and sought its immediate removal. There was not merely an absence of consensus, but a recorded majority view against the change.
    3. Centralisation of the roll database: Both Commissioners warned that access to the electoral roll database was being centralised in Delhi. Both sought safeguards, including an independent technical audit.
    4. Restoration blocked in Goa: Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), the statutory authorities for additions, deletions and corrections, found 97 people eligible after they produced documents, and the software did not permit their restoration. A computer programme cannot overrule a statutory officer.
    5. The West Bengal appeals: Of 38.31 lakh appeals filed before tribunals, 22.21 lakh came from deleted voters seeking restoration. Another 16.10 lakh were reportedly filed by the Commission itself, seeking deletion of voters.
    6. Authority for that litigation: An Election Commissioner asked who had authorised appeals “on behalf of ECI”, recording that neither he nor his colleague had been informed.

    What would an institutional response require?

    1. Disclosure of the decision record: The Commission, meeting as a Commission, should disclose which major SIR decisions were approved unanimously, which were decided by majority, and under what valid allocation any others were issued.
    2. Review of the challenged decisions: Every decision the two Commissioners have challenged as lacking approval should be reviewed, and any found to have been taken without lawful authority should be withdrawn.
    3. Form 6 restored to the Rules: The form should be brought back into conformity with the statutory Rules that prescribe it.
    4. An independent audit of the platform: ECINet should be subjected to an independent technical and legal audit.
    5. Restoring the statutory officer’s powers: EROs should be able to exercise the powers Parliament gave them, without a software permission standing between the decision and the roll.
    6. Disclosure of litigation authority: The authority under which appeals were filed in the Commission’s name should be placed on record.
    7. The forum if the Commission does not act: Where the Commission will not act on its own, the Supreme Court is the only remaining route.

    Challenges to collective decision making in the Election Commission

    1. The allocation of business is not published: A reader cannot tell from an order whether it was collective, because the allocation under which a member may act alone is not in the public domain. Eg. The disclosure now sought is of which SIR decisions were unanimous, which were by majority, and under what allocation the rest were issued.
      The Fix: Publish the allocation of business and record every substantive decision against it, so authority is visible on the face of the order.
    2. No quorum or meeting rule: The statute fixes unanimity and a majority fallback, and prescribes no quorum, no meeting calendar and no record of how a file is circulated. Eg. The objections were written on file across ten months rather than resolved at a sitting of the full Commission.
      The Fix: Frame regulations under Section 18(1) fixing a minimum meeting frequency and requiring each substantive decision to carry the members’ recorded assent.
    3. No internal remedy against an invalid decision: A member who holds a decision to be unauthorised has no forum inside the Commission to set it aside, so the dispute leaves the institution. Eg. The two Commissioners approached the Cabinet Secretary when they believed institutional processes had been breached.
      The Fix: Provide that a contested instruction is placed before the full Commission before it takes effect.
    4. Asymmetric removal protection: The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the manner of a judge of the Supreme Court, while an Election Commissioner can be removed on the Chief Election Commissioner’s recommendation. Eg. The Tarkunde Committee of 1975 and the Goswami Committee of 1990 both recommended the same protection for every member.
      The Fix: Extend the Chief Election Commissioner’s removal protection to all members through an amendment to Article 324(5).
    5. Executive weight in appointments: The 2023 Act placed a Union Cabinet Minister on the three member selection panel in place of the Chief Justice of India, giving the Union two of three votes. Eg. Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023) had set an interim panel of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India.
      The Fix: Restore a selector drawn from outside the executive, so the panel cannot be carried by the government of the day alone.

    Conclusion

    For years the standing question about the Election Commission was whether it is independent of the executive. The question now is whether it is functioning as a Commission at all. A constitutional authority that demands strict compliance with electoral law from nearly a billion voters has to begin by complying with the law that governs itself. What is unresolved is that the only forum able to test a decision taken without the Commission sits outside it, so a defect in collective authority becomes litigation rather than correction.

    Schemes and Initiatives for Electoral Administration

    1. cVIGIL: A citizen reporting application for Model Code of Conduct violations, with a 100 minute turnaround mandated for the investigating officer.
    2. National Voters’ Services Portal: An online route through which an elector can register, modify and confirm their electoral details.
    3. Accessible voting measures: Braille enabled elector photo identity cards, free transport for persons with disabilities, and a vote from home facility for senior citizens.
    4. Delisting of unrecognised parties: Over 808 registered unrecognised political parties that failed to meet essential conditions were delisted by early 2026, curbing misuse of tax exemptions.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • ‘Still awaited… urgently required’: Goa staff sent 8 emails in 7 days, but EC shut out valid voters

    Why in the News

    Ninety seven electors in Goa whom the State’s own Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) heard, examined and found eligible were left off the final electoral roll, and all 97 are still missing from it. The EROs could not give effect to their own decision, because ECINet, the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) roll platform, carried no rollback option and the permission to enable one is controlled from Delhi. Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer wrote to the ECI eight times in seven days seeking that facility. No reply is on record and none of the requests was acted on. The exclusions follow a Supreme Court order directing that electors flagged for a “logical discrepancy” be listed publicly, given ten days to submit documents or objections, and heard. The contested point is whether an electoral roll remains the statutory authority’s document when the software that records it answers to a central information technology division.

    What is a “logical discrepancy”?

    1. Not a finding of ineligibility: A logical discrepancy is not a finding that someone is not a voter. It is a mismatch the Commission’s software throws up when it tries to link an elector to a parent or grandparent on the roll from the last Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
    2. What triggers the flag: The triggers include a parent’s name that does not match, an age gap between parent and child of under 15 or over 50 years, and an age that does not progress correctly between the old roll and the new.
    3. Documentary triggers: A case where the elector submitted no document, or only Aadhaar, is also flagged.
    4. Where the flag is recorded: The flagging decision is entered on ECINet, the platform on which every electoral roll in the country has sat since January.

    What did the Supreme Court order, and what did Goa do?

    1. The display direction: A Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India ordered on 29 January, in the SIR batch of petitions, that the names of those flagged for logical discrepancies be displayed publicly. The display was to carry “the brief reason of discrepancy”, at gram panchayat bhavans, public places, taluka and sub division offices and urban ward offices.
    2. The hearing direction: Those affected were to be allowed ten days to submit documents or objections and to be heard.
    3. Scope of the order: The order was about Tamil Nadu. The Court said it expected the Commission to ensure compliance with these procedural directions in every State where the SIR process was ongoing.
    4. Implementation in Goa: The Commission issued a letter on 31 January to implement the order, and Goa put up the lists.
    5. The hearings: 649 electors came forward with documents or objections. EROs and Assistant EROs examined them and concluded in 97 cases that the elector had “become eligible to be included in the final Electoral Roll”.

    Why could the ERO not give effect to its own decision?

    1. Where the law puts the power: The electoral roll of each Assembly constituency is prepared by its ERO, usually the sub divisional magistrate, who hears every claim and objection and decides every name.
    2. Where the software puts it: What an ERO can do on ECINet and its roll management module ERONet is decided by permissions set in the Commission’s information technology division in Delhi.
    3. The missing function: The decision to flag the 97 had already been entered on the system, and the system carried no rollback option that would let the EROs reverse it.
    4. How long the field had been asking: Requests for a rollback facility had been coming from the field since 22 January.
    5. The vendor was told too: Goa Electronics Limited, the State agency that supports the Chief Electoral Officer’s office on the software, wrote on 11 February to the Chief Electoral Officer and to Tata Consultancy Services, the Commission’s vendor. It recorded that the rollback and reversion functionality, including the document re-upload option, had still not been provided despite “multiple emails” from District Election Officers, EROs and Assistant EROs.

    What does the email trail record?

    1. The escalation: Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer forwarded that record to Delhi the same day, to the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of Goa, with the Commission’s Director General of Information Technology copied.
    2. The repeated asks: Eight communications went from Goa to the Commission between 11 and 17 February. On 13 February the office recorded that a “response to any of the emails and letters sent from officer of the Chief Electoral Officer, Goa… is still awaited”, and on 15 February that “The Roll back option is urgently required”.
    3. The formal letter: On 14 February the Chief Electoral Officer wrote formally to the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of Goa, recording that “no response has been received” to the emails of the previous two days.
    4. The list: On 17 February, four days before the final roll was due, the Chief Electoral Officer sent the list of the 97 cases in which the earlier decisions “have to be reversed”.
    5. The Commission’s own instruction: On 18 February the Deputy Election Commissioner holding the electoral roll charge in Delhi wrote to the Director General of Information Technology that EROs and Assistant EROs have powers under Sections 21 and 21A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 to take corrective action. He recorded that the “IT system cannot block necessary action as per the directions of SC”.
    6. The outcome: The final roll was published on 21 February without the 97. All 97 were still missing when the roll was checked on 20 September.

    What does being off the roll cost a voter in Goa?

    1. Where the 97 are: Sixty five of the 97 are from the Taleigao seat. The rest are from the St Cruz, Cumbarjua, Priol, Margao, Benaulim and Velim Assembly seats.
    2. The roll as an eligibility document: Several Goa State schemes use the electoral roll to establish eligibility, so being off it costs more than a vote.
    3. Health cover: The Goa Mediclaim Scheme funds super speciality treatment not available in government hospitals, covering dialysis, angioplasty, open heart surgery, transplants, chemotherapy and cochlear implants. It is open only to voters of the State.
    4. What the 97 were told: When the names did not go in, the electoral officers on the ground told these voters to apply afresh on Form 6, the form for new voters.

    How does the Goa case fit the two Election Commissioners’ recorded objections?

    1. The record: Two of the Election Commission of India’s three Election Commissioners objected on record at least 14 times in 10 months to decisions taken without their knowledge. Their notes run from November to August.
    2. Centralisation: One of them wrote in May of “the gradual centralisation” of the electoral roll database. Both recorded that centralised control of the software was taking the roll out of the EROs’ hands, where the law puts it.
    3. Access: An August note recorded that EROs, District Election Officers and Chief Electoral Officers “don’t have proper and complete access to the ERONet portal”.
    4. Authority: The same note recorded that the Director General of Information Technology “doesn’t have any legal authority to restrict proper and complete access and freedom to operate, as given by law, to the statutory authorities”.
    5. The unanswered question: A questionnaire sent to the head of the Commission’s information technology division, asking why the rollback facility was not enabled for Goa before the final roll, drew no response.

    Challenges to a centralised electoral roll platform

    1. Vendor dependence on a statutory system: Core roll functionality sits with an external software vendor, so a missing feature becomes a change request question rather than a legal one. Eg. The Commission’s roll platform is built and maintained under contract by an external information technology firm.
      The Fix: Publish a service level agreement for statutory functions on the platform, with a fixed turnaround for any change request that a court order requires.
    2. No independent audit trail of permissions: A roll database with centrally set permissions needs an external record of who changed what and when, or the system’s own logs become the only evidence of its own integrity. Eg. A proposal for an audit certifying that no one outside the statutory authorities can alter the database went unanswered.
      The Fix: Commission a third party security and access audit of the roll platform, with its findings placed before the full Commission.
    3. A revision calendar compresses the citizen’s remedy: A roll built on software generated flags puts the burden of establishing eligibility on the elector, inside a window set by the revision timetable rather than by the elector’s circumstances. Eg. An elector who misses a revision window must return to the roll through the new voter route, starting the process again.
      The Fix: Provide a standing, year round correction route that does not depend on a revision cycle being open.
    4. Roll membership is used far beyond voting: A welfare scheme that keys eligibility to the electoral roll converts a roll error into a loss of services, which electoral law never contemplated. Eg. Several State benefit schemes use voter identity or roll membership as a residence proxy.
      The Fix: Decouple welfare eligibility from the electoral roll by accepting alternative residence proof for scheme access.
    5. Deletion before verification inverts the burden: A design that removes a name first and then asks the elector to establish eligibility places the cost of the system’s own uncertainty on the citizen. Eg. Over nine in 10 appeals against deletion decided so far in West Bengal have restored the elector.
      The Fix: Hold a flagged name on the roll until the hearing concludes, so an elector’s status changes only after a decision is taken.

    Conclusion

    The Commission’s standing answer to any allegation about the roll is that no one person can touch it, because thousands of Electoral Registration Officers prepare it constituency by constituency. Goa is the case where that answer stops holding. The officer decided, and the decision never reached the roll. What is unresolved is who is accountable when a statutory decision fails at the system layer, since the law names the officer and the software answers elsewhere. The marker to watch is whether a rollback facility is enabled at the ERO level before the next revision, and whether the 97 are restored without being routed through the new voter form.

    Back2Basics: Special Intensive Revision

    1. What it is: A Special Intensive Revision is a house to house exercise in which the electoral roll is prepared afresh rather than amended, with electors asked to establish eligibility.
    2. Legal basis: The Election Commission may direct a special revision of the roll of any constituency at any time, under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
    3. How it differs from a summary revision: A summary revision updates the existing roll through additions, deletions and corrections. An intensive revision enumerates the electorate afresh.
    4. Procedure: A draft roll is published, claims and objections are invited and heard by the Electoral Registration Officer, and a final roll is then published.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • From a jan sunwai in Delhi, lessons for poll body

    Why in the News

    Residents of Mangolpuri in Delhi lined up at a jan sunwai, a public hearing, to file claims and objections against being wrongfully excluded from the draft Special Intensive Revision (SIR) voter list. The hearing produced a documented record of wrongful deletion in every category the draft roll used. The draft roll had been published four days earlier, with over 47 lakh names in Delhi marked absent, permanently shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD). A further 11 lakh voters were dropped from the list altogether and 32 lakh were to receive notices, so one in two voters in Delhi was trying to get a name back on the roll. The Chief Election Commissioner has certified the process, on the claim that zero appeals have been filed against deletions in the 12 states where the revision is complete. A certification of no grievance and a public record of proven error cannot both describe the same exercise.

    How does the Special Intensive Revision work?

    1. About: The SIR is a house to house revision of the electoral roll in which every voter files a fresh enumeration form.
    2. Draft roll: The revision produces a draft list. Voters then file claims and objections against exclusion from it.
    3. Markings on exclusion: A name not carried forward is marked absent, permanently shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD). Other names are dropped from the list outright or issued notices.
    4. Logical discrepancies: Mismatches that the software throws up against older entries are recorded as “logical discrepancies”.

    What did the Mangolpuri public audit find?

    1. Wrongful deletion in every category: The audit showed wrongful deletions across all the ASDD categories.
    2. Spouses split: In 95 houses one spouse was marked as shifted. The other spouse remained on the SIR list.
    3. An elector marked dead: An elector named Kanta Prasad, recorded as dead, came to the microphone at the hearing and asked what he could do to come back to life.
    4. The basis for that entry: The Chief Electoral Officer’s press note said he was placed in the dead category on information furnished by a family member. That family member is his son.
    5. The son’s account: The son has recorded a statement that he was tricked into signing a blank sheet of paper, on the pretext that it would restore his father’s name.
    6. A resettlement colony: Mangolpuri is a resettlement colony. The scale of deletion there caused extreme insecurity among residents.

    What six lessons does the public audit yield for the poll body?

    1. Three mandated house visits: The booth level officer (BLO) cannot complete the mandated three visits to every house, whatever orders are passed. Many houses were not visited even once.
    2. Burden of registration: De novo filling of enumeration forms by all voters shifts the burden of voter registration from the Election Commission to the voter, and is bound to produce mass exclusions. In 2002 booth level officers instead used the previously frozen voter list to verify additions and deletions house to house.
    3. Lineage based proof of citizenship: Proving citizenship by mapping oneself or one’s direct lineage onto the 2002 voter list has proved a nightmare. It falls hardest on migrant workers and on women who have shifted after marriage.
    4. Amplified data entry errors: The logical discrepancies amplify wrong data entries made over the years. The burden of correcting data that the administration entered wrongly falls on the citizen.
    5. Grievance redress machinery: The appeal and grievance redress process lies with the same machinery that is implementing the exercise. The system is arbitrary by design and must go.
    6. Public hearing before deletion: The election manual already provides for a public hearing at the panchayat, ward or booth level before any name is deleted or added. Those provisions must be implemented in letter and spirit.

    What does the poll body’s response to the audit show?

    1. A press note in defence of the deletions: Two days after the hearing the Chief Electoral Officer’s office responded through a press note. It stood by its deletions in all six cases it addressed.
    2. Restoration treated as first time registration: A wrongly deleted voter is required to return to the roll by filling Form 6. That form makes the voter declare that they are “applying for inclusion in the electoral roll for the first time”, which is false in their case.
    3. Accountability not offered: No redress or accountability was offered for the incorrect deletions the audit established.

    Can a citizen led public audit become part of revising the roll?

    1. A demonstrated method: The audit did not merely prove incorrect exclusions. It also demonstrated an efficacious method to update and revise the electoral roll.
    2. Ignored by the Commission: The Election Commission has almost entirely ignored that method.
    3. Orders that cannot be executed: The Chief Electoral Officers of Karnataka, Telangana and Jharkhand have issued perfunctory orders for such hearings. One day has been allocated for the purpose, so the orders can never be carried out.

    Conclusion

    A revision that begins from a blank form makes the voter prove an entitlement the law already grants. The poll body’s own certification and the record produced at a public hearing cannot both be accurate. Nothing in the process decides between them, because the authority that deletes a name also hears the appeal against it. That is the question this exercise leaves open. What to watch is whether additions and deletions are put through an independent public audit before a roll is finalised, and Delhi is where that safeguard would be tested first.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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