A deep cleaning of India’s electoral rolls, Pg9

Key Highlights:

• The Election Commission of India (ECI) conducted a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) 2025 of electoral rolls in some states to ensure accuracy.
• SIR 2025 involved door-to-door verification and digitization of documents to update electoral rolls.
• In Bihar, over 7.5 crore entries were verified, resulting in the removal of 65 lakh electors from the draft list.
• The Supreme Court also deputed volunteers to assist in the submission of claims/objections/corrections online.

Detailed Insights:

• Special Intensive Revisions (SIR) rebuild the electoral list from scratch, while summary revisions make incremental corrections.
• SIR 2025 was implemented to address issues like rapid migration, expanding urban centers, and high residential mobility that led to inaccuracies in electoral rolls.
• The ECI expanded the list of acceptable documents for proof of citizenship to 11 items and accepted Aadhaar cards as proof of identity.
• The SIR process included training booth-level agents of recognized political parties and engaging with parties to share electoral rolls.
• Despite 65 lakh deletions in Bihar, only 36,500 claims for inclusion were received, and no appeals were filed against any deletion, indicating careful scrutiny.
• The authority to undertake such revision exercise flows directly from the constitutional scheme itself, which vests the superintendence, direction, and control over the preparation of electoral rolls in the ECI.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Electoral Roll: A list of persons eligible to vote in an election.
• Universal Adult Franchise: The right of all adult citizens to vote, regardless of wealth, income, gender, race, ethnicity, belief, or social status.
• Disenfranchisement: The removal of the right to vote from a person or group of people.