The Election Commission of India (ECI, or popularly known as the EC), on 4 November 2025, launched the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) 2025, a nationwide drive supposedly aimed at ‘cleaning up’ and updating the electoral rolls across 12 states and Union Territories. Officially, the exercise is presented as an effort to enhance accuracy, transparency and authenticity — the ECI’s usual trinity whenever public confidence begins to waver.

In a 1 December 2025 submission before the Supreme Court, the EC claimed that “the SIR exercise adds to the purity of elections by weeding out ineligible persons from the electoral roll.” The affidavit further asserts that “the guidelines issued with respect to the SIR exercise are constitutional and in the interest of maintaining the purity of electoral rolls, which is a pre-requisite for free and fair elections that form a basic feature of the constitution.”

As much as such submissions, these assertions sound noble, on paper. In practice, the timing is nothing short of extraordinary — coming months before crucial state and national elections, when even the smallest change in voter lists could tilt the scales of representation. The EC insists that this is routine, technical and administrative.

Yet what appears ‘routine’ in procedure may be progressive or regressive in its consequences.

When the very determination of who gets to vote is under ‘revision,’ the question presents itself: Can a democracy still call itself free and fair if the list of its citizens — the very foundation of the vote — is open to selective correction?

The EC’s mandate, constitutional boundaries — and the Aadhaar paradox

At the heart of India’s electoral democracy lies Article 324 of the Constitution, which grants the EC the power of superintendence, direction and control over elections to Parliament and the state legislatures. The framers envisioned it as a neutral trustee entrusted with ensuring that every eligible adult, as guaranteed under Article 326, is able to vote freely. The EC was never meant to function as an arbiter of demographics or a quasi-citizenship-verification authority.

Yet the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, introduced a new ambiguity. The amendment inserted Section 23(4) into the Representation of the People Act, 1950, empowering registration officers to require Aadhaar for identity verification and eliminating duplication. Section 23(5) simultaneously states that a voter may refuse to submit Aadhaar if there is ‘sufficient cause,’ and that such refusal cannot be the basis for deletion.

This duality — power without compulsion, authority without obligation — created a legislative loose end. Aadhaar remained voluntary on paper, with the EC publicly reiterating this voluntariness. The Supreme Court has also been assured that alternative documents will remain valid.

However, in practice, the EC now possesses the statutory authority to demand Aadhaar as an evidentiary document wherever it deems necessary. In other words, it can use Aadhaar when convenient, and retreat behind voluntariness when accountability is sought.

This gives the EC an asymmetric ‘theory of convenience’: full operational benefit without legal or constitutional burden. A government official who has been a Booth Level Officer (BLO) for over fifteen years confirmed to The Polity that they have been unofficially instructed that, as far as possible, BLOs should collect and add the Aadhaar numbers of eligible voters in their booths.

“We cannot officially insist that a voter provide their Aadhaar. However, among all the prescribed 12 documents, it remains the preferred option,” the BLO pointed out.

By making Aadhaar the quasi-default mode of verification — without explicitly mandating it — the state quietly shifts the burden of electoral legitimacy onto the citizen. Instead of the EC ensuring inclusion, the voter must ensure compliance with the EC’s preferred data architecture.

This is where the SIR 2025 strains constitutional boundaries. A routine administrative exercise risks evolving into a mechanism that implicitly redefines the electorate. If Aadhaar-linked checks become the practical norm, the EC’s role shifts from facilitation to filtration.

As the noted psephologist and political analyst, Yogendra Yadav avers, the Commission’s mandate is to conduct elections, not reshape the electorate. Yadav also alleged that the SIR is the “biggest disenfranchisement exercise in history.”

By keeping the law open-ended and operationalising it through SIR 2025, the Parliament has handed the EC significant discretionary powers without accompanying safeguards. The question, therefore, is not whether the SIR 2025 is efficient or modern, but whether it adheres to the spirit of Article 324 — whether it strengthens neutrality or quietly undermines it through the expedient architecture now available to it.

Ironically, despite this legislation, it remains a mystery as to why the EC was hesitant to accept Aadhaar as a valid identity document during the Bihar SIR process — until the intervention of the apex court. While this puzzle endures, it demands a credible and convincing explanation that an ordinary citizen can trust.

What SIR 2025 seeks to do

SIR 2025 apparently presents itself as an administrative and technological update to electoral roll management. It combines door-to-door verification with digital processes: enumerators verify details, cross-check documents, and Aadhaar is accepted as one identity proof. Data is then integrated into the electoral database to enable quicker validation.

The stated aim is administrative — removing duplicates, deceased individuals and ineligible names. What distinguishes this revision from the Special Summary Revision (SSR) of 2002 is the greater reliance on citizen-driven verification. Through e-signs, Aadhaar-linked authentication and online submissions, voters must initiate or confirm updates rather than relying on field officers.

This shifts the process from state-led to hybrid verification, where digital self-certification plays a central role. A missed response or incomplete documentation can affect whether a voter remains listed, particularly in regions with limited digital access. The question is how effectively this balance will work across India’s diverse landscape.

Take the instance of Kerala, where the ongoing SIR coincides with the three-tier local bodies elections. Even in this highly-literate and digitally-empowered state with a high expatriate population, where one might expect near procedural perfection in such programmes for its civic culture and public pressure, the ongoing SIR is not without its complexities and ambiguities.

Neither high literacy levels nor an informed citizenry does much to mitigate the underlying purposes that many believe are being surreptitiously carried along.  

For reasons that only the EC can fully explain, the SIR-2025 enumeration form remains unnecessarily convoluted — a fact repeatedly emphasised by several BLOs The Polity spoke to. One of the most puzzling requirements is the insistence that if a voter’s own name does not appear in the 2002–2005 electoral rolls, they must trace and furnish details of a relative (often a parent or older family member) whose name appeared in that older roll.

Most of the time, it becomes nearly impossible “to locate such relatives in the 2002 list — especially because of minor spelling variations, typographical errors, or changes in family structures over two decades,” the BLO, who was quoted earlier, said. “We are left scrambling through old records for information an ordinary voter cannot reasonably be expected to remember,” the BLO added.

This linkage to a two-decade-old roll — instead of relying on contemporary identity documents — has left many BLOs and voters equally baffled. The EC has not offered a clear public rationale for why a voter shifting residence in 2025 must prove a genealogical thread to an electoral roll of 2002.

This is only one of the many glaring issues that have surfaced so far. As the process unfolds and gathers momentum, more such complications are likely to emerge.

The problem of large-scale deletion

Past ‘clean-up’ exercises show how administrative revisions could lead to disenfranchisement. Telangana’s 2018 revision allegedly removed nearly 20 lakh names; Delhi’s 2019 drive reportedly dropped lakhs more due to clerical mismatches or temporary migration. These reveal how technology-enabled corrections magnify errors where documentation gaps are common.

Those affected most are groups already vulnerable to bureaucratic oversight — migrants, tenants, informal workers, minorities, the urban poor and first-time voters. For them, small documentation lapses can mean losing the right to vote.

The political dimension deepens concern. Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, have alleged selective deletions in Karnataka and Haryana. Reports from Bihar show similar patterns where the EC itself listed 65 lakh voters excluded by the SIR, while the final roll listing around 3.66 lakh ‘ineligible’ voters. The final roll did not mention any “foreign illegal immigrants,” whose exclusion was stated to be the purpose of the SIR in Bihar.

These experiences underline a structural risk: without safeguards, accuracy exercises may unintentionally produce exclusion. Here, technology is not the issue — the lack of monitoring, transparency and timely correction is.

Data politics and surveillance concerns

Beyond wrongful deletions lies a second risk — the expanding datafication of the electoral process.

Experts from the Internet Freedom Foundation, privacy lawyers and civil society groups warn that linking voter data with Aadhaar risks cross-referencing personal information across government systems. Such integration may expose address histories, mobility patterns and socioeconomic details, especially when Aadhaar-linked services are widespread.

This does not mean a unified citizen profile is already being built, but the infrastructure for such profiling is being created. Aadhaar is supposed to be a residency-based identity document, not proof of citizenship. Using it for voter verification opens the door to mismatches, errors and potential misuse of demographic information.

Yogendra Yadav, for instance, argues that this marks a shift from a citizen-centric electoral system to a data-driven governance model, where administrative efficiency risks overshadowing democratic rights. When electoral databases are embedded within broader data ecosystems, voter lists can — without oversight — become tools for demographic mapping, targeted mobilisation or exclusionary filtering.

The concern is not dramatic surveillance, but the gradual creation of an environment where electoral data can be correlated with other datasets. This possibility underscores the need for strict safeguards and independent oversight.

This is more so relevant in the light of multiple allegations that citizen data from Aadhaar has already been leaked or misused by private actors (for instance, past reports of data being accessed by financial firms and biometrics providers).

Impact on the electorate: Eroding the right to vote

The ultimate casualty of the SIR 2025 may be the shrinking of the electorate itself. In the name of ‘cleaning up’ the rolls, the exercise risks excluding those who struggle with documentation — tenants, migrants, the poor. A correction may become a contraction.

This undermines the principle of universal adult franchise, which presumes eligibility unless disproven. SIR inverts that presumption, redefining voting as a conditional entitlement subject to verification, and thereby making the act of voting entirely dependent on paperwork and digital proof.

This leaves the citizens to run from pillar to post, effectively reversing the democratic jurisprudence of enfranchisement. A citizen repeatedly asked to ‘prove’ their right internalises doubt. Participation becomes compliance. Over time, this breeds alienation — the sense that the state distrusts its own people.

The irony of the SIR 2025 is that a measure intended to enhance credibility makes participation more precarious. In its obsession with proof, the system replaces trust with suspicion. The more rigorously we verify, the less inclusive we become.

This pattern is not unique to India. In the United States, strict voter-ID laws and aggressive roll purges have been criticised by civil-rights groups for disproportionately affecting minority and low-income voters. In the United Kingdom, photo-ID requirements introduced in 2023 turned some voters away, especially from poorer, younger, and more vulnerable communities.

Across these democracies, a clear lesson emerges: when procedural verification is pursued without ensuring equitable access, the promise of participation can slip into exclusion.

Democracies worldwide show similar patterns — procedural perfection often produces moral imperfection. Bureaucracy, when unchecked by empathy, transforms participation into permission.

The SIR 2025 is thus a test of democratic temperament. A state insisting on endless verification may create flawless records, but also a flawed democracy.

The SIR 2025 also sits on shaky constitutional ground. Arbitrary deletions and unverifiable exclusions strike at Article 14 (equality), Article 19 (freedom of expression, assembly, association, etc.), and Article 326 (universal franchise). Treating some citizens as presumptively suspect subverts equal treatment.

Constant re-authentication erodes the basic structure of democratic participation. Voting is envisioned as a right secured by citizenship and adulthood, not a privilege renewed through compliance.

The Puttaswamy judgment (2017) warned against a surveillance-oriented state that forces citizens into perpetual authentication. The SIR 2025, by making the right to vote contingent on repeated identity verification, embodies precisely the constitutional dangers the Court cautioned against in this case.

Thus, what is at stake is the constitutional soul of Indian democracy. A system that disqualifies through doubt cannot claim legitimacy through law.

Political undertones and judicial silence

The SIR 2025’s timing and scale raise political concerns. Conducted before major state elections and amid declining institutional trust, it innately carries political undertones. The issue is not only who remains on rolls but who disappears. Verification can reshape constituencies, especially in closely contested areas.

Experts warn that without transparency, bureaucratic interventions become tools of manipulation. If small deletions can alter results, then what is framed as data management effectively becomes democracy, and more importantly, election management with implications for the outcome.

The SIR shifts public discourse from governance to the mechanics of inclusion. Citizens find themselves defending their right to be counted rather than demanding accountability. This marks a regression: defining who the voter is begins to overshadow responding to the voter.

A striking feature of the SIR 2025 is the silence around it. Despite affecting millions, mainstream media treats it as routine. This normalises erosion of rights.

Civil society appears disengaged. Networks that once mobilised on Aadhaar or surveillance show little urgency. Their muted response allows the narrative of administrative efficiency to overshadow constitutional concerns.

Political parties, too, have hesitated to mount systematic challenges. This vacuum leaves the bureaucracy unchecked. Without oversight, the judiciary or Parliament may eventually have to restore balance. An independent audit of SIR 2025 may be the minimum safeguard.

Ominous signs from Bihar’s SIR

The SIR 2025, launched just before the state elections, had ignited a serious controversy. The exclusion of over 64 lakh voters in the initial list resulted in opposition parties and civil society groups approaching the Supreme Court. While the apex court did not halt the exercise as such, its intervention included instructing the EC to publish a searchable list of excluded voters, accepting Aadhaar as proof of identity and so on.

As mentioned earlier in this report, the final electoral roll showed a huge drop in registered voters, and lakhs were struck off and denied voting rights despite them not being proven as ‘foreigners’ or ‘deported’ from the country on that account.

On the other hand, the EC’s claims of duplication being addressed emerged as a false claim, as many voters from other states, who claimed to be of Bihari domicile, ended up voting in the state elections of November. Social media was abuzz of leaders from a particular party with votes in other states, including a Delhi University academic, seen voting in the Bihar polls.

Similarly, there were allegations that the EC did not run the duplication software to weed out such multi-state voters.

The EC claimed the large-scale purge in Bihar was a routine clean-up, while critics saw in it a different picture: one of political engineering. Many point out that women bore a disproportionate brunt, with significantly more female names removed from the list, raising fears that marginalised communities may have been selectively targeted.

Transparency has become another flashpoint. The Supreme Court instructed a detailed, searchable list of all the deleted names along with explicit reasons for each removal. The EC responded by publishing district-wise exclusion names, but many remain unconvinced. Doubts persisted over whether the grounds for deletion were verified rigorously, or whether bulk data removal bypassed proper scrutiny.

Amid all this, deeper questions loomed. If the deletion scale really ran into lakhs, did it have a real electoral impact? Why were relatively few people mobilised to file appeals? How exactly was the EC determining whom to delete — what criteria, documents, and software processes was it really using?

There are also allegations that basic technical safeguards were not fully employed, leaving the system open to misuse.

Adding to the controversy was the timing and electoral outcome. In the November 2025 election for the 243-seat assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) swept to a landslide victory, winning 202 seats, with the BJP maintaining a strike rate of 95 per cent – unheard of in popular democracies.

The opposition immediately raised concerns over the roll revision process, asking whether the expunging of large numbers of electors ahead of the vote had influenced the result.

One detailed dataset showed that the NDA also won in four of the five assembly constituencies with the highest net deletions under the SIR. While the EC and the NDA dismissed such manipulation claims, the convergence of massive deletions, high turnout and a decisive win for the ruling alliance invited hard questions about whether a routine update became a voter-reconfiguration exercise.

The deeper concern has been not merely the numerical fluctuation but what it signified: when the list of electors shifts so dramatically, the integrity of democratic participation becomes inseparable from the integrity of data management.

The future of Indian democracy

The coming months will test not just the EC’s competence but also the nation’s democratic resilience. If mishandled, the SIR 2025 could turn a routine update into a political instrument of exclusion. A data exercise could quietly reorder the electorate.

Safeguarding democracy demands moral clarity. When governance becomes data management rather than people empowerment, democracy becomes a spreadsheet — efficient but soulless.

India’s future will be shaped not by data accuracy but by inclusiveness. The danger lies not in flawed data but in flawed faith — when the state mistrusts its citizens more than citizens mistrust the state.

When the right to vote depends on periodic re-approval by the state, democracy risks becoming a permission slip, not a right.

Electoral integrity is moral, not technical. It is measured by inclusiveness and trust, not by database precision. Democracy draws legitimacy from ensuring every voice counts.

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