For the past few years, opposition parties have consistently questioned the impartiality of the Election Commission of India. It is true that blaming the Commission after an electoral defeat is an old tradition. Lately, however, the Commission’s own actions have made it appear to be falling short on credibility, and the damage extends to the 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 inconsistencies in the controversial “Special Intensive Revision”, or SIR, campaign have raised questions about those very duties.

The latest development has made the question even more serious. According to a verification carried out on 23 September by a Delhi-based English daily, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded their objections in writing at least 14 times over a period of about ten months. These objections related to voter registration, the deletion and restoration of names, Form 6, appeals, and control over the electoral roll database. According to sources, they objected to decisions taken without informing them or taking them into confidence. Their main concerns were changes to Form 6, the centralisation of the electoral roll database, the limited availability of field officials, and the process of deleting names.

The episode has put Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in a difficult position. The Congress-led opposition, which was already attacking the Commission, has grown more aggressive and is demanding the Chief Election Commissioner’s removal. A disagreement between two of the three members of the body that runs the country’s electoral process cannot be dismissed as a minor administrative matter. The issue is directly tied to the core questions of electoral credibility and accountability.

In its first statement on 23 September, the Commission said there was nothing unusual in these objections, claiming that recording written comments and observations is routine practice. On 26 September, it then issued a separate press note on three subjects: new voter registration, the question of extending the SIR deadline, and the points raised in the Indian Express report. The note was released after a meeting of all three commissioners, along with a photograph of them together. It also contains a response to the separate letters that Sandhu and Joshi had written to the Cabinet Secretary in July.

Many saw the note as an exercise in “damage control” meant to improve public perception. It partially concedes the commissioners’ complaints, but only those of an administrative nature. It says that from now on the agenda will be published before meetings and the minutes after them, and that officials will need the Commission’s approval for foreign trips. It also appears to indirectly acknowledge flaws in the implementation of the SIR, promising that electoral registration officers will run a “special campaign” to bring back those whose names were left out.

But the note offers no explanation of what happened earlier. If agendas and minutes are only now going to become routine, it is natural to ask what the practice was before, and what became of the directions given earlier. The process that removed lakhs of genuine voters from the rolls in West Bengal and encroached on the right to vote, state by state, has drawn no expression of regret or remorse from the Commission. Those whose names were deleted have been asked to apply afresh, like new applicants. One question raised by Sandhu still remains unanswered.

Form 6, which was designed to make voter registration easier, was made more complicated in this process. Voters were required to state whether their parents’ names appeared in the previous SIR roll. The objection is that these changes were made without legally amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, framed under the Representation of the People Act. In its latest note, the Commission says the Supreme Court has approved this notification, and it clarifies that outside the SIR period, only the prescribed forms under these rules will be used.

Last time, recognising the complexity of the process, the Commission’s own staff carried out the responsibility. This time, the same burden was placed on the voters. How is an ordinary voter supposed to remember, roughly a quarter of a century later, at which polling station their parents voted? People had to go from door to door to obtain this information. For want of this linkage, the names of crores of voters across the country were struck off the rolls. The criticism is that the SIR shifts the state’s duty of registration onto the voter, deletes names before verification, and then imposes difficult conditions for getting back on the list.

The figures from West Bengal make the picture clearer still. According to an affidavit the Commission filed in the Supreme Court, by the beginning of September 2026, more than 38 lakh appeals had been filed before the SIR appellate tribunals. Only about 1,22,000 of them have been disposed of, a disposal rate of just 3.2 per cent. Of these, 1,13,943 voters were added back to the rolls, an inclusion rate of about 93 per cent. In nine out of every ten appeals, the excluded voter’s name was restored, which means eligible voters were wrongly disqualified on a large scale.

Of the total 38.31 lakh appeals, 22.21 lakh were filed by excluded voters seeking to return to the rolls, while 16.10 lakh sought the removal of names of people who were on the rolls. Of the 60 lakh voters flagged by the judicial officers appointed for verification on grounds of “logical discrepancies”, 27 lakh were deemed ineligible. More than 22 lakh of them have appealed. If the current rates of disposal and inclusion continue, most of these 27 lakh should never have been declared ineligible. In other words, the conclusion is that a large number of voters were deprived of their right to vote ahead of the Assembly elections.

It also shows how slow the resolution of the problem is. The tribunal appointed by the Supreme Court is estimated to need 12 years to dispose of the roughly 37 lakh appeals pending in Bengal. Municipal elections are approaching in the state. The Commission must therefore speed up the appellate process and bring eligible voters back onto the rolls without delay.

In the third phase of the SIR, another shocking fact emerged in Delhi. In 24 of Delhi’s 70 constituencies, the number of voters in the draft roll is lower than the number of people who actually voted in the February 2025 Assembly elections. For deletions on such a scale to be justified, there would have to have been massive migration out of the capital, or a large number of voters would have to never have been ordinary residents of Delhi at all. The more credible explanation is that the enumeration process itself excluded genuine voters.

The burden of proving eligibility is placed on the voter, and even though the Commission delivered enumeration forms to homes, the enumeration has not been complete. Voters have to link themselves to the rolls of the early 2000s. Even with correct documents, this creates “discrepancies”. In Delhi, this “mapping” led to notices being issued to 13.79 lakh voters. Another 19.33 lakh voters were put on the “logical discrepancy” list for undefined reasons.

According to critics, this ruling viewed the SIR in purely theoretical terms rather than in terms of actual practice. A provision meant for exceptional and targeted revision was interpreted as permitting a statewide campaign. The court offered the comfort that voters already on the rolls would be treated as eligible, yet the SIR made them prove their eligibility all over again. The court also set aside its own 1995 judgment, which required an individual reason for every deletion of a name. During the hearing of the petitions on the Bihar SIR, the court had intervened promptly to ensure that the names of eligible voters were not struck off. The leniency shown toward a reckless Commission in the year since, critics say, has led to people being disenfranchised on such a massive scale. They say this will remain a permanent stain on the legal principle of universal adult suffrage in India. With petitions on Delhi and West Bengal now being heard, it is the court’s duty to compel the Commission to change course.

The question of how commissioners are appointed also comes to the centre of this debate. At the time of the appointment of the current Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had recorded a note of dissent in the selection process. Because the government holds a decisive majority in that process, questions about the Commission’s autonomy keep arising. There is therefore a demand that the Commission be reconstituted through a selection committee in which the government does not hold a majority that reduces everyone else to a subordinate role. Anything less would make a mockery of institutional democracy.

That no eligible voter should be excluded from the rolls is a principle recorded in almost every document of the Commission and repeatedly underlined by the Supreme Court as well. If it is not followed in practice, what is the use of the principle? For the sake of Indian democracy, the Commission should urgently lift the veil of secrecy, publish the relevant records, and present its decision-making process transparently. It should answer every significant question raised by its own commissioners. Being answerable to citizens, not to the government, is the Commission’s moral duty. Giving every Indian an inclusive and citizen-friendly electoral system would be the true beginning of restoring the Commission’s credibility.

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Vikas Parashram Meshram is an independent writer, social worker, and researcher associated with rural development. He regularly writes on issues related to tribal communities, rural livelihoods, agriculture, climate change, and social transformation. He is a regular contributor to Asia-Pacific Research.

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