By – Dr. Wahengbam Rorrkychand Singh
India’s debate over the Election Commission of India (ECI) and its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is no longer only about the number of names removed from electoral rolls. It is also about how voter lists are created, checked and corrected, and who has authority to take decisions within the poll panel.
The SIR exercise highlights the importance of balancing accurate electoral rolls with inclusive voter registration. Measures such as home visits by Booth Level Officers (BLOs), special help desks for vulnerable groups, assistance from Booth Level Agents (BLAs), and online document submission are intended to make the process more accessible. With 2.37 crore Gen Z voters added between 24 June 2025 and October 2026, ensuring that every eligible citizen can register and verify their details remains central to electoral participation.
Hence, it important to understand what SIR actually is, why it was undertaken and what safeguards are meant to prevent legitimate voters from being excluded.
What Is SIR and Why Is It Necessary?
A Special Intensive Revision is a detailed exercise to verify and update electoral rolls. Unlike routine summary revision, it involves deeper verification of existing entries, including checking whether voters are alive, ordinarily resident at the stated address and free from duplicate enrolment.
The legal basis comes from Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which allows the ECI to order a special revision at any time, with reasons recorded.
The need arises because electoral rolls change continuously. People die, migrate, shift constituencies and sometimes appear more than once. The Supreme Court’s 27 May 2026 judgment noted that in Bihar the last intensive revision had been conducted in 2003, while the intervening two decades had seen rapid urbanisation, large-scale migration, non-reporting of deaths and duplication of entries. The Court held that SIR had a legitimate purpose connected with maintaining the accuracy and integrity of electoral rolls and free and fair elections.
Bihar SIR began on 24 June 2025. At one stage, 98.01% of electors had been covered, with 7.17 crore enumeration forms, or 90.89% of the total, received and digitised. The exercise identified approximately 20 lakh deceased electors, 28 lakhs permanently migrated electors, 7 lakh duplicate enrolments, 1 lakh untraceable electors and about 15 lakh unreturned forms.
These figures explain why an electoral database requires periodic intensive checking. But accuracy must operate alongside inclusion.
How Does the Process Protect Voters?
The ECI completed SIR across 20 States and Union Territories, including Bihar and West Bengal, and initiated Phase-Ill across the remaining 12 States and Union Territories.
For voters receiving notices because of unmapping or logical discrepancies, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) conduct home visits, collect documents and upload them to EClNet, avoiding the need to visit ERO or AERO offices. Hearings are held online as far as possible, and voters can authorise any adult family member to represent them.
District Election Officers have established help desks and special camps for labourers, night-shelter residents and poor citizens. In Goa, BLO outreach helped 81 of 97 identified missed voters submit Form 6 and restore their registration.
The scale of field participation is also significant. Bihar mobilised 77,895 existing BLOs, 20,603 newly appointed BLOs and more than 4 lakh volunteers assisting elderly, disabled and vulnerable citizens. Recognised political parties appointed around 1.56 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) to verify voter lists side-by-side. Across the country, more than 20 lakh BLAs audit the registration process, while 100% webcasting is conducted across polling stations on election day.
The figure of more than 13 crore draft deletions across 30 States and Union Territories has become central to the controversy. But draft deletions include categories such as deceased, migrated, duplicate and unverified entries. A draft deletion is therefore not automatically the same as disenfranchisement.
Procedure, Youth Enrolment and the New Court Question
The SIR timeline included the initial order of 24 June 2025, the 27 October 2025 schedule for 12 States/UTs, and the 14 May 2026 schedule for 19 States/UTs. The ECI had stated that these orders were agreed to unanimously by all three Election Commissioners.
The Supreme Court’s 26 May 2026 and 27 May 2026 proceedings upheld the legal basis of the Bihar SIR framework.
At the same time, between 24 June 2025 and October 2026, 2.37 crore GenZ voters were added – approximately 16 lakh every month, or 50,000 every day. Claim and objection deadlines were extended in Delhi to 30 October 2026, with disposal by 30 November 2026, and in Maharashtra to 12 October 2026, with disposal by 10 November 2026.
Administrative and Technological Checks
The letter to the Cabinet Secretary concerned the work of an officer on deputation and had no connection with Commission policy matters or the IT Division. Work-redistribution orders issued by the officer were not implemented following directions from two Commissioners. Supervision of the IT Division by the Deputy Election Commissioner was never withdrawn.
A committee headed by a Senior Deputy Election Commissioner, including an independent expert from an IIT or IIIT, was tasked with reviewing ECINet.
EVMs are standalone units unconnected to any network. Safeguards include First Level Checking (FLC), two stages of machine randomisation in the presence of candidate agents, mandatory pre-poll mock polls, candidate verification of burnt memory, and mandatory WPAT slip matching across five randomly selected polling stations per Assembly constituency. The Supreme Court reaffirmed these safeguards in ADR vs. ECI in April 2024.
Accuracy, Inclusion and Institutional Trust
SIR is necessary because electoral rolls cannot remain accurate without periodically accounting for death, migration, duplication and changes in residence. But intensive revision also creates a corresponding responsibility: legitimate voters must have accessible ways to establish their eligibility and challenge errors.
The 13 crore draft deletions, 2.37 crore GenZ additions, over 20 lakh BLAs, 100% webcasting, BLO verification, technical safeguards and judicial oversight show the scale of the exercise.
The latest Supreme Court proceedings add another lesson. The legality of SIR as an exercise and the legality of specific administrative decisions within it are separate questions. The Court has already examined the ECl’s power to conduct SIR; it is now examining allegations concerning particular decisions and the modified Form 6.
The credibility of electoral revision ultimately depends on both sides of that equation: accurate rolls and an effective process for correcting mistakes.
