Balancing the integrity of electoral rolls with inclusion is the ECI's central challenge today. Examine, drawing lessons from the preparation of India's first electoral roll.

Article 326 gives every adult citizen the vote, but that right is real only if the person's name is on the roll. In ADR v. ECI (2026 INSC 564), the Supreme Court upheld the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) because it restores the "accuracy, completeness, and integrity" of rolls [1]. Each deletion still raises a question: is a cleaner roll being achieved at the cost of eligible voters?

Integrity: why revision is needed

• Outdated rolls: Bihar's last intensive revision was in 2003. The ECI cited rapid urbanisation, migration, unreported deaths and foreign immigrants, and acted under Art. 324 and Sec. 21, RP Act, 1950 [2].
• Judicial backing: The Court held that SIR is proportionate and has a rational nexus with its purpose. It also found that notice and hearing under Rule 21A were preserved [1].

Inclusion: where the risk lies

• Scale: Bihar's roll fell from 7.89 crore to 7.24 crore in the draft, a removal of about 65 lakh names. The final roll recovered only to about 7.42 crore [3].
• Burden on the voter: Migrants marked "shifted", women who moved after marriage and people with few documents must prove their own eligibility.
• Limits on citizenship checks: The Court allowed only a "limited enquiry" into citizenship. Doubtful cases go to the Citizenship Act authority, Bihar's citizenship-based deletions must be referred within four weeks, and anyone confirmed as a citizen must be restored to the roll [1].

Lessons from the first electoral roll

• Identity matters: Many women were enrolled only as "A's mother" or "B's wife". CEC Sukumar Sen called this a "senseless relic" and ordered officials to insert the women's own names [4].
• The cost of a rigid rule: Nearly 2.8 million women who did not give their names were left off the roll [5]. A rule that looked neutral fell hardest on a vulnerable group.
• The lesson: Rules meant to protect integrity need active outreach alongside them. Otherwise the burden of correcting the roll falls on the people who were excluded.

Integrity and inclusion support each other: a roll that leaves out eligible citizens is not a clean roll. The phased SIR with its safeguards [6] should go further. The ECI should publish deletion data broken down by reason and gender, enrol migrants at their new address, and settle appeals quickly. Following Sen's example, it should work as hard to add eligible voters as it does to remove ineligible ones. This would honour Article 326 and SDG 16.7's goal of inclusive decision-making.