J Gopikrishnan
Aug 17, 2025
The Supreme Court has risen to the occasion by ordering the Election Commission of India (ECI) to give details of 65 lakh deleted voters of Bihar and reasons for the cancellation, and has opened avenues for appeal. The Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi rightly said, basically, the ECI lacks trust in the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The timing of conducting the SIR in Bihar by the Commission was real suspect as it happens barely seven months ahead of the Bihar polls. SIR is important and is conducted every 10 years, normally after the Census. The last SIR was conducted in 2003, a year before the Lok Sabha election of 2004.
Why is SIR on electoral rolls conducted?
In every ten years there are major changes in electoral rolls. Around 15 to 20 per cent of the people die, and around 20 to 30 per cent new voters become eligible. Generally more than 30 per cent of women migrate to their husband’s home after marriage, and more than 30 per cent of the people migrate due to other areas for jobs. This is the basic reason for conducting SIR in electoral rolls every ten years.
But somehow, SIR was not conducted in 2013 or 2023, a year before the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 and 2024. Why was it not conducted? Only the ECI can answer, and no political party has answered this question. The controversy started in mid-April, when the Commission decided to conduct SIR in Bihar electoral rolls only, with hardly seven months left for the Assembly election. The Election Commission’s integrity was doubted by many due to its non-practical procedures and demand for certificates like the Birth Certificate from voters and even from their parents to ensure their names are in the voters’ list. Who keeps the Birth Certificate? What an impractical demand to ask people to bring it! A Birth Certificate is normally kept by parents and given to schools to show that children have attained the age of five. Is anybody — even the Election Commissioners —having their Birth Certificate? The next controversy created by the ECI was the non-approval of the Aadhaar Card and even its own Voter ID Card.
The ECI even showed audacity to argue against the rejection of these documents. Then the Commission came out with a totally illegal order. The ECI said that migrant workers have to vote where they currently work for more than six months. This is totally wrong. Where to vote is the choice of the voters. He or she can join at a new place or maintain a vote in the hometown. If deleted, he or she has the right to get it back. Why Election Commission made this obnoxious rule, when India implemented vote for NRIs from 2014. Anyway, very less is the voting enthusiasm among the NRIs for the past 10 years and less than two percent of the registered voters are coming to vote. It is up to the voters to decide whether to maintain his or her vote or by adding up in new area by deleting from the old area. It is not at all ECI’s prerogative to decide where people should exercise their voting power.
These things show that the officers and Commissioners in ECI are not applying their mind and simply going as per the people in power dictate and ignoring their Constitutional responsibilities.
The less said, the better, about the history of the Election Commission and its integrity and independence. The Commission, earlier also showed similar attitude by playing with Government in power. Except TN Seshan, all Election Commissioners played along with the Government in power, forgetting their Constitutional responsibilities.
Seshan also went overboard, and then rightly the Narasimha Rao Government appointed two more Election Commissioners and implemented decision-making in a democratic way. But unfortunately, after Seshan, no Election Commissioner showed mettle and preferred to take the responsible post as a post-retirement job to live peacefully.
In 2013, the Election Commission was lying through its teeth in the Supreme Court in Subramanian Swamy’s case on implementation of VVPAT (voter-verifiable slips) in EVMs. The ECI always objected to the implementation of voter-verifiable slips attached with the Electronic Voting Machine. It even argued that printing ink and papers were not easily available across India! Judges laughed and passed a landmark judgment implementing VVPAT, bringing transparency in the counting and re-counting process.
There are still questions on the Bihar SIR. As many as 65 lakh votes have been deleted, and when will the voters get the chance to appeal, as hardly two months are left for the Bihar Assembly election? How many new voters have been added, and when will they get the chance to register before the election notification? Hope the apex court will bring transparent guidelines on electoral list preparation by providing updated versions with deletions and additions. The whole of India needs SIR, as our last one was conducted 22 years ago, and hope the Supreme Court will bring wisdom to the Election Commission by ensuring transparent ways.
(The writer is a journalist with ‘The Pioneer’)