It is an old Indian political tradition for opposition parties to question the impartiality of the Election Commission of India (ECI) following an electoral defeat. Lately, however, the Commission’s own actions have given genuine cause for concern, threatening not just its credibility but the very standing of the country’s democracy. Conducting transparent elections and safeguarding every citizen’s right to vote are the fundamental duties of this constitutional body. Yet, the glaring inconsistencies in the controversial "Special Intensive Revision" (SIR) campaign have raised profound questions about whether the ECI is fulfilling its mandate.
The stakes were raised dramatically by a recent revelation. According to a verification report published on September 23 by a Delhi-based English daily, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded written objections at least fourteen times over a ten-month period. These objections pertained to voter registration, the deletion and restoration of names, Form 6 procedures, appeals, and control over the electoral roll database. Sources indicate the two commissioners objected to major decisions being taken without their knowledge or consent. Their primary concerns centered on the centralization of the electoral roll database, the limited availability of field officials, and the arbitrary process of deleting names.
This internal rupture has placed Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on the defensive. The Congress-led opposition, already critical of the Commission, has intensified its demands for the CEC’s removal. A public disagreement between two of the three members of the body that oversees the world’s largest electoral process cannot be dismissed as a minor administrative hiccup. It strikes at the core of electoral credibility and institutional accountability.
The Commission’s initial response has done little to reassure the public. In a September 23 statement, the ECI claimed that recording written observations is merely "routine practice." On September 26, following a meeting of all three commissioners—conveniently accompanied by a photograph of them standing together—the ECI issued a press note addressing new voter registration, the SIR deadline, and the allegations in the media report. The note also responded to separate letters Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi had written to the Cabinet Secretary in July.
Many observers rightly viewed this as an exercise in damage control. While the note partially concedes to the dissenting commissioners' complaints, it limits its concessions to administrative tweaks: publishing agendas before meetings, releasing minutes afterward, and requiring Commission approval for officials’ foreign trips. It indirectly acknowledges flaws in the SIR’s implementation, promising a "special campaign" by electoral registration officers to restore left-out names.
But the note offers no explanation for what went wrong in the first place. If publishing agendas and minutes is only now becoming routine, one must ask what the previous practice was, and where earlier directions went. The process that removed lakhs of genuine voters from the rolls in West Bengal, encroaching on the franchise state by state, has drawn no expression of regret or remorse from the Commission. Instead, those wrongfully deleted have been asked to apply afresh, as if they were new applicants. One crucial question raised by Commissioner Sandhu remains entirely unanswered.
Consider the procedural absurdity of Form 6. Originally designed to simplify voter registration, the form was made significantly more complicated during this process. Voters were suddenly required to state whether their parents' names appeared in the previous SIR roll. Critics rightly point out that these changes were implemented without legally amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, framed under the Representation of the People Act. In its latest note, the Commission defensively claims the Supreme Court approved this notification, clarifying that outside the SIR period, only prescribed forms will be used.
Previously, recognizing the complexity of such revisions, the Commission’s own staff shouldered the burden of verification. This time, that burden was shifted squarely onto the voter. How is an ordinary citizen expected to remember, roughly a quarter-century later, at which specific polling station their parents voted? Citizens have been forced to go door-to-door to unearth this information. For want of this arbitrary linkage, the names of crores of voters across the country were struck off the rolls. The SIR effectively shifts the state’s duty of registration onto the voter, deletes names before proper verification, and then imposes draconian conditions for reinstatement.
The figures from West Bengal paint a damning picture. According to an affidavit filed by the Commission in the Supreme Court, by early September 2026, more than 38 lakh appeals had been filed before SIR appellate tribunals. Only about 1.22 lakh have been disposed of—a dismal disposal rate of just 3.2 percent. Of those disposed, 1,13,943 voters were added back to the rolls, representing a staggering inclusion rate of roughly 93 percent. In nine out of every ten appeals, the excluded voter’s name was restored. This proves that eligible voters were wrongly disqualified on a massive scale.
Of the 38.31 lakh total appeals, 22.21 lakh were filed by excluded voters seeking reinstatement, while 16.10 lakh sought the removal of names already on the rolls. Furthermore, of the 60 lakh voters flagged by judicial officers for "logical discrepancies," 27 lakh were initially deemed ineligible, and more than 22 lakh of them have appealed. If current disposal and inclusion rates hold, the vast majority of these 27 lakh individuals should never have been declared ineligible in the first place. The inescapable conclusion is that a large number of voters were unlawfully deprived of their franchise ahead of the Assembly elections.
The resolution process is also moving at a glacial pace. The tribunal appointed by the Supreme Court is estimated to require twelve years to dispose of the roughly 37 lakh appeals pending in Bengal alone. With municipal elections approaching in the state, the Commission must urgently expedite the appellate process and restore eligible voters to the rolls without delay.
In the third phase of the SIR, another shocking anomaly emerged in Delhi. In 24 of the capital’s 70 constituencies, the number of voters in the draft roll is actually *lower* than the number of people who cast ballots in the February 2025 Assembly elections. For deletions on this scale to be legitimate, there would have to have been massive migration out of the capital, or a vast number of voters must never have been ordinary residents at all. The far more credible explanation is that the enumeration process itself systematically excluded genuine voters.
The burden of proving eligibility remains firmly on the voter. Even though the Commission delivered enumeration forms to homes, the process has been deeply flawed. Voters are forced to link themselves to rolls from the early 2000s. Even with correct documents, this creates artificial "discrepancies." In Delhi, this "mapping" exercise led to notices being issued to 13.79 lakh voters, while another 19.33 lakh were placed on a "logical discrepancy" list for vaguely defined reasons.
Critics argue that the judiciary has viewed the SIR in purely theoretical terms, divorced from ground realities. A provision meant for exceptional, targeted revision has been interpreted as a license for a sweeping, statewide purge. While the courts have offered the comfort that voters already on the rolls would be treated as eligible, the SIR’s mechanics forced them to prove their eligibility all over again. Alarmingly, the court appears to have set aside its own 1995 judgment, which mandated an individual, recorded reason for every deletion of a name. During hearings on the Bihar SIR, the court intervened promptly to protect eligible voters. The leniency shown toward a reckless Commission over the past year, critics warn, has led to disenfranchisement on a massive scale, leaving a permanent stain on the legal principle of universal adult suffrage in India. With petitions concerning Delhi and West Bengal now being heard, it is the court’s duty to compel the Commission to change course.
Finally, the question of how Election Commissioners are appointed sits at the center of this debate. During the appointment of the current Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recorded a formal note of dissent in the selection process. Because the ruling government holds a decisive majority in this process, persistent questions about the Commission’s autonomy are entirely justified. There is a growing, legitimate demand that the Commission be reconstituted through a selection committee in which the government does not hold a majority that reduces all other voices to a subordinate role. Anything less makes a mockery of institutional democracy.
That no eligible voter should be excluded from the rolls is a principle enshrined in almost every ECI document and repeatedly underlined by the Supreme Court. If this principle is ignored in practice, its existence is meaningless. For the sake of Indian democracy, the Commission must urgently lift its veil of secrecy, publish all relevant records, and present its decision-making process transparently. It must answer every significant question raised by its own commissioners.
Being answerable to citizens, not to the government, is the Election Commission’s highest moral duty. Delivering an inclusive, citizen-friendly electoral system is the only true beginning to restoring the Commission’s credibility.
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*Contact: vikasmeshram04@gmail.com
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