"Electoral roll revision must balance purity with inclusiveness." Examine this with reference to the Special Intensive Revision and the corrective steps that followed.

Article 324 vests control of electoral rolls in the Election Commission of India (ECI), and Article 326 guarantees adult suffrage. A roll must therefore be both pure (no dead, shifted or duplicate names) and inclusive (no eligible adult left out). The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) pursued purity at a visible cost to inclusiveness.

Purity: the legitimate case for the SIR

• Rolls carry dead, shifted and duplicate entries that invite impersonation. The ECI deletes only on these grounds, or as "untraceable" after 2–3 BLO visits [3].
• The Supreme Court (May 2026) upheld the SIR under Article 324 and Section 21(3), RP Act, 1950, and found it proportionate [1].

Inclusiveness: where the SIR fell short

• Scale: Bihar's roll fell from about 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore electors. About 65 lakh names were dropped at the draft stage [2].
• Reversed burden of proof: a modified Form 6 asked for ancestry and links to older rolls. The Court later said it had never approved these changes [4]. Migrants, the poor and women who moved after marriage often have weak papers, so they are most exposed.
• Opaque data: one deletion total lumps deaths together with migrants the BLOs missed [3]. This hides wrongful exclusion.
• Citizenship overreach: the Court allowed the ECI only a limited enquiry into citizenship. It ordered that citizenship-based deletions be referred to the Citizenship Act authority within four weeks [1].

Corrective steps: necessary, not sufficient

• A Special Summary Revision is under way in 17 States/UTs, with 1 January 2027 as the qualifying date. It includes a special drive and help desks for migrants and marginalised groups [5].
• Form 7 cap: each elector can file 10 objections in the claims period and five a month otherwise. This curbs bulk deletion requests [6].
• Gaps: BLOs will make no house-to-house visits this time [5], so "untraceable" electors must re-apply on their own. The cap limits the number of objections but does not check any of them.

Way forward

• Publish deletions booth by booth, sorted by ground. Report re-enrolments separately from fresh enrolments.
• Have BLOs revisit "absent" deletions and hold a hearing before every Form 7 deletion. Keep Aadhaar as an accepted document, as the Court directed [1].

The SIR showed that pursuing purity by making citizens prove eligibility shrinks the franchise. The corrective steps implicitly accept this. The State, not the voter, should carry the burden of verification through field revisits, transparent data and due process. That would protect both the integrity of the roll and Article 326's promise of universal adult franchise.