Why the EC’s SIR exercise is a 99% success

The Election Commission of India’s exercise to clean up Bihar’s electoral roll, billed as the Special Intensive Revision, has despite political opposition and legal warfare by artful activists, has been a staggering success with just 5,000-10,000 deletions that do not fall in the category of the dead, permanently shifted or duplicate entries. Further, there are no significant objections to the few thousand deletions, suggesting the anomalies are at  best marginal.

After weeks of arguments in the Supreme Court, the petitioners opposing the EC’s conduct of the SIR, the Association for Democratic Reforms and activist Yogendra Yadav, have been unable to establish the exercise resulted in mass deletions of eligible voters. It has been argued that the exercise could be improved – and indeed the Bihar experience should offer learnings to the ECI – but efforts to show eligible voters being struck off has failed, prompting the SC to note that there is an excess of passion and a deficit of reason in the pleas against the SIR.

Of the 65 lakh voters removed from the Bihar electoral roll, 22 lakh are dead. These are the consequence of a natural process. It cannot be anyone’s case that those who have passed on should be on the voter list. Then there are 33 lakh who are permanently shifted. It is not necessary these voters are “deleted” altogether. They are no longer residents of Bihar but can be registered elsewhere. The onus for registering as a voter lies on individuals too. Again, as in the case of deletions that do not fall into the categories mentioned above, the number of representations are few. In any case, any appeal against deletion is bound to be given a hearing.

Seven lakh voters have been deleted due to duplication. Reports of a high number of women in this category is likely due to names being on the list in both pre-marital and matrimonial homes. This also does not mean removal from the voter list. If a duplication is done away with, the person is registered at another location, perhaps the correct residence as per current status. Seen in totality, the SIR is a 99 percent success and has not led to any discernible expression of public discontent over the method of the revision or its results.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant

During the course of the hearings, petitioner described as gibberish voter list entries where one location registered dozens or even hundreds of voters. On the face of it, this does appear odd. But the problem for ECI enumerators in registering voters living in slums, jhuggis or remote hamlets is that there is no given address. There are no house numbers and even bastis (settlements) may lack specificity. Yet, the voters are registered and assigned booth numbers. The ECI is investigating such instances but the multiple or enbloc registrations are not as absurd as they might seem at first glance.

During a recent hearing, the Supreme Court considered a case of a voter who was purportedly on the 2025 draft roll but was subsequently deleted. The concerned voter’s EPIC (Electoral Photo Identity Card) number was not presented. It transpired that the voter was not on the draft roll as he failed to sign and submit the pre-filled enumeration form prepared by the ECI. Further the entry number quoted was for a woman not a male voter. Being caught out has, however, not deterred the SIR’s opponents and another bunch of claims has been presented which  the ECI will examine.

Building a politicised narrative

As can be seen, the idea is to keep churning out allegations irrespective whether they are well founded. The absence evidence clearly does not an issue as the objective seems to be to obfuscate matters and create doubts over the SIR in the minds of the public. Activist Yogendra Yadav and well-known advocate Prashant Bhushan representing ADR participated in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. While this may be coincidental, Rahul’s “vote chori” narrative chimes in with the anti-SIR petitions that are more a political than a legal challenge as evident by the holes in the evidence they rely on.

In all, going by proceedings in and out of court, the number of persons that are said to be deleted from the voter list does not exceed a few dozen. Allegations that some persons voted in different locations have been found to be a genuine case of voters moving locations. In any case, those pointing out such instances are themselves presenting the case for an SIR, not just in Bihar but the entire country so that not only forthcoming state elections but the 2029 Lok Sabha poll is contested on the basis of a cleaner voter list than is the case at present.

Finally, it needs to be pointed out that the ECI treated the 2003 voter list as having probative value. Some 2.5 crore voters on this list were not required to present any fresh proofs. Those who subsequently became eligible and could present entries of their parents from the relevant extract of the voter list – numbering close to 3 crore -- were also eligible voters. This meant 75% of persons eligible to be on the 2025 voter list were enabled with hardly any documentation.

The list of 11 documents, with SC including Aadhar as the 12^th, includes the “vanshavali” or the family lineage, that can be easily provided by the local official such the Lekhpal. The Booth Level Officers are also usually locals and can easily deal with any complaint in this regard. The SIR exercise shows the revision can indeed be carried out and it is unlikely that states under opposition governments will actually resist it despite political noises. They would be aware that this will be a violation of ECI mandate and amount to a breakdown of constitutional machinery.