"Cleaning electoral rolls must not come at the cost of disenfranchisement." Critically examine this in the context of the Special Intensive Revision of 2025–26.

Article 326 sets only two conditions for the vote, citizenship and age 18, and Article 324 places the electoral roll under the Election Commission of India (ECI). The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which began in Bihar [3], aimed at a purer roll. It removed over 47 lakh names in Bihar and nearly 91 lakh in West Bengal [4]. The goal of the SIR is legitimate, but the way it was carried out needs correcting.

The case for cleaning the rolls

• Legal mandate: The Supreme Court held that the SIR is traceable to Sec. 21(3), RP Act, 1950 read with Art. 324. It found the exercise proportionate to restoring the roll's "accuracy, completeness and integrity" [1].
• Real errors: Rolls carry dead, permanently shifted, duplicate and untraceable entries, which are the ECI's stated grounds for deletion [2]. Such entries invite impersonation and dilute genuine votes.
• Built-in safeguards: Booth Level Officers verified house to house, and a draft roll was followed by a claims-and-objections window [2]. Notice and hearing under Rule 21A were held to be preserved [1].

Where cleaning slides into disenfranchisement

• Burden reversed: Every elector had to prove eligibility again, so silence or absence could cost a vote. The Court, however, stressed a presumption in favour of electors already on the roll [1].
• Documents: Aadhaar was added only after the Court's order of 8 September 2025 [1]. The paperwork burden fell hardest on the poor and undocumented [4].
• Mobile citizens: The "shifted" and "untraceable" categories [2] risk catching seasonal migrants, who are neither at home during verification nor settled elsewhere.
• Remedy delayed is vote denied: Many deleted electors remained "in limbo" through the 2025 Bihar and 2026 Bengal polls [4]. Restoring a name after polling day cannot return that vote.

Way forward

• Time-bound adjudication: Decide disputed cases before the next election, as the Court directed [1]. Hear appeals from deleted voters before objections to other people's inclusion.
• Transparency by default: Publish every deletion, with its reason, in every State.
• Fix the document list beforehand, and accept identity documents that people widely hold.
• Timing: Leave a correction window between the final roll and the poll.
• Migrant-friendly enrolment: Make it easy to transfer a registration and explore remote voting.

The SIR shows that a clean roll and an inclusive roll are not opposing goals; the real failures were in method, timing and remedies. The Court asks that revisions proceed with "care, fairness, and due regard to the limits of institutional competence" [1]. Following that test would keep roll purity consistent with universal adult franchise under Article 326 and with SDG 16.7 (inclusive decision-making). Integrity and inclusion should be pursued together.