Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr | De-Politicise SIR; Don’t Let It Be a Political Ruse

The plain question surfaces time and again as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, last revised in 2002-04 is underway in the vortex of Election Commission’s orders, clarifications, a case before the Supreme Court filed in July 2025 soon after the EC notification for the SIR of June 24, 2025 for revision of rolls in Bihar, the loud campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah of chasing out infiltrators, and the louder protests of Opposition parties that this was simply a ruse to delete the names of voters belonging to the minority communities. The curious thing is that the EC decided on the SIR for Bihar in June 2025 when the state Assembly elections were due in November 2025. There was a certain peremptoriness attached to the move. The EC has the authority to initiate the revision of electoral rolls at any time, and there is provision for “special revision” (SR). What is this “Special Intensive Revision”?

At the end of the first phase of the SIR in nine states and three Union territories, 6.5 crore names have been deleted, and the total number of voters had been reduced to 40.40 crores from 50.90 crores. There is no mention of how many of these deleted names were those of “foreign nationals”.

Most of the deletions related to those who had died, who moved residence permanently, and those who had registered themselves as voters in more than one place. The BJP’s theme song of weeding out the intruders, or infiltrators, has turned out to be so much fizz and nothing else. The concern of the Opposition parties that the exercise was to reduce or even exclude Muslims from the voters’ list needs to be scrutinised further. There is room for suspicion because in West Bengal, 57.47 lakh voters’ names that have been deleted are those of Hindus, while the number of Muslim names that have been deleted stand at 31.1 lakhs. That is, Hindus account for 63 per cent of the deletions and Muslims 34 per cent. Muslims, going by the 2011 Census, formed 27 per cent of the state’s population. In Uttar Pradesh, 2.05 crore names have been deleted, of which 2,069 were under age or were not Indian citizens. So, that should settle the spectre of foreigners voting in India’s elections. In more ways than one, therefore, the Narendra Modi government has shot itself in the foot. The SIR quietly refutes the BJP’s invective.

The SIR is not the first of its kind. It was last done in 2002-04, and it had been carried out eight times since 1951. The Narendra Modi government has given a political spin to the SIR, and it has raked up toxic emotions in every quarter. And with its pronounced anti-Muslim, anti-minority bias, the BJP has weaponised the simple process of revision of electoral rolls. The BJP government has through the exercise of delimitation of redrawing the Parliament and Assembly constituencies, has tried to reduce the number of constituencies where Muslims could affect the electoral outcome, especially in Assam. Gerrymandering has been the standard political trick of manipulating the electoral districts. It is a common practice in the United States, and it is an instrument available to the ruling parties in India. Ruling parties will not play fair and keep away from it. So, we have to learn to live with the dirty tricks departments of all governments.

The Election Commission and the commissioners who are supposed to man it should be playing the benign and enabling role for people to exercise their fundamental democratic right to vote. But many of the commissioners over the years have failed to maintain their image of independence and impartiality. They give the impression of being the camp followers of incumbent governments. Partisan election commissioners taint the image of democratic governance in the country, but they cannot derail the process. The majority of people who cast their vote correct the distortions introduced by tame officials. That is why the BJP, which had won 302 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, managed to get only 240 in the 2024 general election, and the BJP which had turned arrogant because the parliamentary majority of its own in 2014 and in 2019, was reduced to a minority party. It became the single largest party. Then the electorate had quietly curbed the growing arrogance of the Hindutva party.

The Election Commission’s job is to strengthen the people’s voting rights. It fails to do so because it leans towards the seats of power instead of leaning against them. The SIR would not have become a controversial issue if the commission had tried to conduct it without political overtones. Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and his colleagues have followed the narrow rules of the law while giving the distorted perception that the BJP wanted to give it. They followed the letter of the rulebook while abandoning the spirit of the law. That is a great disservice to democracy. Bureaucrats can strengthen the democratic framework, and they can also debilitate it. Mr Kumar and his fellow commissioners have damaged the image of the Election Commission, eroding the trust of the people in the august body.

As the EC prepares to go in for the SIR in the remaining states and Union territories, there is a need to do course correction in terms of clearing the cloud over the whole exercise. The electoral roll revision is due. It has to be depoliticised. The revision is needed so that all adult citizens can exercise their democratic right to vote. The details of the SIR, and they must be enough inaccuracies left in them, show that most of the deletions are natural and logical, and the issue of foreigners in the electoral rolls is a myth. It is not surprising that populist politicians have a way of foregrounding non-issues, taking attention away from pressing questions. Prime Minister Modi has proved himself to be a master populist, raking up things that divide people and polarise society. The BJP has thrived on polarisation and Mr Modi is only following the party’s agenda. The people have to see through the fog of rhetoric. The party has no positive agenda to present. The SIR has served as a perfect ruse. These are the hazards of a working democracy. People have to work around them, and punish politicians and parties for misleading them.