Electoral rolls are best understood as a living document rather than a static record. Elaborate with reference to recent ECI practices.

Addressing the first All India Media Conference (2026), CEC Gyanesh Kumar described India's electoral roll of nearly 95 crore electors as a "living document" that evolves dynamically [1]. This captures a statutory reality: the roll is a continuous process of inclusion and correction, not a one-time list.

Statutory design makes the roll dynamic

• Under Article 324, the ECI holds superintendence over roll preparation, operationalised through the Representation of the People Act, 1950 [2].
• Section 21 requires revision before every general election and empowers the Commission to order a special revision at any time for recorded reasons [2].
• Continuous updation runs year-round through statutory forms for inclusion, deletion and correction, alongside annual summary revision.

Recent ECI practice: Special Intensive Revision (SIR)

• Phase-I was completed in Bihar (2025) ahead of the Assembly election, using house-to-house enumeration by BLOs, draft publication, and a claims-and-objections window [3].
• Phase-II, ordered on 27 October 2025, covers about 51 crore electors across 9 States and 3 UTs, spanning 1,843 Assembly Constituencies [4].
• Deletion is permitted only after BLO verification under four grounds — death, permanent shifting, duplication, and untraceability [5].

A machinery of continuous audit

• Over 12 lakh Booth Level Officers (official) and 15 lakh Booth Level Agents (party-appointed) act as "concurrent auditors" of the roll [1].
• The 2026 Media Conference demonstrated roll preparation and counting to 380+ media professionals, extending transparency to a new stakeholder [1].

Living, yet rule-bound

• Dynamism raises disenfranchisement risk; hence appeals lie against ERO decisions, and the Supreme Court upheld SIR as within the ECI's statutory mandate and Article 324 obligation [5].

A roll that breathes with births, deaths and migration is the precondition for universal adult franchise under Article 326. The way forward lies in pairing SIR's cleansing rigour with wide publicity, robust grievance redress and party participation, so that the "living document" grows more inclusive even as it grows more accurate.