Balancing electoral roll integrity with protection against wrongful disenfranchisement is a key governance challenge. Suggest safeguards for intensive revisions of electoral rolls.

Article 326 gives the vote to every adult citizen. Section 21(3) of the RP Act, 1950 lets the ECI order a special revision of rolls "for recorded reasons" [1]. Bihar's 2025 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) showed that cleaning the rolls and protecting genuine voters must be planned together.

The Balancing Challenge

• Integrity need: enumeration flagged about 22.34 lakh dead and 7.01 lakh multiply-enrolled electors. Such entries dilute every honest vote [3].
• Exclusion risk: the largest category was about 36.28 lakh "permanently shifted/absent" electors [3]. It rests on field visits and can sweep in seasonal migrants, who remain citizens.
• Precedent: in Lal Babu Hussein v. ERO (1995), the Supreme Court examined a drive against "suspected foreigners" on the rolls [1]. The 2026 SIR verdict reads that case as giving names already on the roll a presumption of citizenship [2].

Suggested Safeguards

Procedural

• No deletion without notice, a hearing and a reasoned order. Section 22 already requires a reasonable opportunity of being heard [1]. This should be written into the Registration of Electors Rules for every SIR.
• Publish all draft-roll exclusions with reasons, booth-wise and online, so that voters and parties can object in time.

Documentary

• Treat the document list as illustrative, not exhaustive. Accept Aadhaar as proof of identity, though not of citizenship, as the 2026 verdict held [2]. Accept local records for poor households.

Institutional

• EROs should refer genuine citizenship doubts to the authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and keep the name on the roll until it decides. The verdict permits only a "limited" inquiry by the ECI [2].
• Make appeals to the Chief Electoral Officer [1] time-bound and back them with legal-aid support.

Legislative and field-level

• Amend the RP Act, 1950 to define when a statewide SIR may be ordered, its minimum duration and a cut-off date before general elections.
• Require a second Booth Level Officer visit or phone contact before marking anyone "shifted". Set up migrant help desks in source districts.

A clean roll and an inclusive roll go together; neither should be traded for the other. If the State, not the voter, carries the burden of justifying a deletion, and transparency and legislative clarity are added, intensive revisions can become credible. That would honour Article 326's promise of universal adult franchise and SDG 16.7's call for inclusive, participatory decision-making.