The Election Commission of India has dismissed apprehensions of “mass disenfranchisement” triggered by the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, telling the Supreme Court that such allegations are an attempt to “politicise” the exercise.
The successful completion of the SIR in Bihar was proof that accusations of the en masse deletion of voters were false and speculative, the EC submitted in the Supreme Court.
“The exercise [SIR] is aimed at purification of electoral roll. The allegation of mass disenfranchisement levelled by petitioners is an attempt to politicise the exercise to serve vested political interests, and, as has been proven by the successful implementation of SIR in Bihar, untenable,” the EC maintained.
‘SIR is a new form of NRC’
The petitioners include the Association for Democratic Reforms, represented by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, as well as political parties and leaders from States like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. They have termed the SIR as a “de novo National Registration of Citizens (NRC)”, in which the burden is on the voter to prove her Indian citizenship in order to be included in the electoral roll.
The EC insisted that the SIR was a “cooperative and participatory exercise” involving all stakeholders, including electors and political parties.
“The involvement of booth level agents and volunteers from the same constituency as the electoral; conduct of house-to-house visits by booth level officers; filing of claims and objections are all features which involve the participation and cooperation of electoral and political parties to ensure the SIR exercise is successfully implemented,” the EC said in its recent affidavit.
‘No need for social audit’
The poll body described the features of the SIR, particularly the claims-and-objections stage as a sort of “social audit”. These features, the EC reasoned, allow electors the “power to initiate enquiry against any erroneous entry in the draft electoral roll”.
Taking the case of Bihar, it said the draft roll along with the list of 65 lakh people “who did not submit enumeration forms” were provided to political parties at the State, district, and booth levels along with reasons for non-submission. The information had also been disseminated online and through social media handles. The draft list and the list of excluded persons were also posted outside block development offices and panchayat bhavans.
In fact, these steps were taken by the EC on the basis of a judicial order passed by the Supreme Court on August 14.
The EC said it would replicate these measures in the second phase of the SIR currently underway across 12 States and Union Territories, covering over 50 crore people. It dismissed the petitioners’ idea of a social audit.
“The SIR order of October 27, 2025 contemplates the posting of all details across all booths, block development offices and websites. There is no requirement to conduct any additional social audit,” the EC assured them.