The Election Commission of India is conducting a nationwide Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, an exercise that has triggered sharp political controversy, street protests and demands for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. At its core, the SIR is a large-scale, house-to-house verification drive designed to clean and update India’s voter lists after more than two decades without a comparable intensive revision.
How the SIR process works
Unlike the routine annual summary revision, which relies largely on voluntary claims and objections, the SIR involves Booth Level Officers visiting every household in their polling areas. They distribute pre-filled enumeration forms based on existing records, verify details against the last intensive revision (conducted between 2002 and 2004), and collect updated information. Names that cannot be linked or verified may be marked for further scrutiny. Draft rolls are then published, giving electors and political parties a window to file claims for inclusion or objections to proposed deletions. Final rolls are prepared only after these processes and hearings where required.
The Commission has emphasised safeguards: multiple door-to-door attempts before treating someone as untraceable, sharing of draft lists with recognised parties and their booth-level agents, and the opportunity for affected electors to respond. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of the exercise in May 2026, holding that it falls within the Commission’s powers under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
Why the Election Commission and government say it is necessary
The Election Commission and the government argue that electoral rolls had accumulated significant errors over more than 20 years of rapid urbanisation, migration and demographic change. Duplicate entries, names of deceased persons, permanently shifted voters and untraceable electors had inflated the lists and risked the principle of “one person, one vote.” Political parties had themselves raised concerns about the quality of the rolls. The last nationwide intensive revision took place in 2002-04. Officials describe the current SIR as a long-overdue purification exercise to produce accurate, credible and up-to-date rolls that strengthen the integrity of elections.
The scale of deletions
At the draft stage across 30 states and Union Territories, approximately 13 crore (or 13.3 crore) names were classified under the Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate (ASDD) categories. According to Commission data cited in recent clarifications, this included around 2.8 crore deceased voters, about three crore absent or untraceable electors, 6.3 crore permanently shifted voters and nearly one crore people registered at multiple locations. The Commission stresses that these are draft-stage classifications, not final deletions. Eligible voters can still file claims and objections before final rolls are published, and millions of new or shifted voters have also been added during the process. In earlier completed phases covering 12 states and Union Territories, net deletions after inclusions stood at about 5.2 crore (roughly 10 per cent of the starting electorate).
The Commission has rejected claims of wholesale removal of “fake, ghost, illegal or non-citizen” voters as a single category, noting that the bulk of draft markings relate to death, shifting, absence or duplication. Precise figures for non-citizens identified specifically as illegal immigrants have not been published as a distinct total.
Historical precedent under Congress governments
Intensive revisions of electoral rolls are not new. The Election Commission has conducted such exercises multiple times since Independence. Government leaders, including Home Minister Amit Shah, have pointed out that SIRs took place in 1952, 1957 and 1961 under Jawaharlal Nehru; in 1965-66 under Lal Bahadur Shastri; in 1983-84 under Indira Gandhi; in 1987-89 under Rajiv Gandhi; and in 1992-95 under P.V. Narasimha Rao. The 2002-04 revision began under the NDA and was completed under the United Progressive Alliance government of Manmohan Singh. Officials note that these earlier exercises faced little sustained political opposition at the time.
The current controversy centres less on the principle of revision and more on its scale, timing, methodology and alleged impact on specific communities. Opposition parties contend that the process risks disenfranchising genuine voters, particularly the poor and marginalised, and question internal decision-making within the Commission. The Election Commission maintains that the exercise is transparent, legally sound and essential for pure electoral rolls. Final numbers will become clearer only after claims, objections and the publication of final rolls across all phases.
