Examine the tension between the goals of 'purifying' electoral rolls and ensuring universal adult suffrage, with reference to recent SIR exercises in Indian States.

Article 326 rests Indian democracy on universal adult suffrage, while Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 empowers the ECI to order an intensive revision of rolls [1]. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) seeks an accurate roll; recent State exercises show accuracy and inclusion pulling apart.

The case for purification

• A statutory duty: rolls must be revised before elections, and the Commission may direct a special revision for reasons recorded in writing [1].
• Scale of the exercise: SIR Phase-II covered nearly 51 crore electors across 9 States and 3 UTs through house-to-house enumeration, targeting deceased, duplicate, shifted and untraceable entries [2].
• Credibility gain: the Bihar SIR was completed on schedule [3], and the ECI publicly uploaded the list of about 65 lakh names excluded from the draft roll, enabling verification [4].

Where suffrage comes under strain

• Reversal of burden: the onus of proving eligibility shifts from the State to the elector, weighing hardest on migrant workers, the urban poor and women lacking legacy documents.
• Volume of doubt: Telangana's draft roll (17 August 2026) followed collection of only 78.30% of enumeration forms, with roughly 92 lakh enrolled persons served notices for clarification before final publication [5].
• Urban concentration: deletions cluster in high in-migration cities, though intra-State movement should transfer, not extinguish, an entry.
• Transparency deficit: deletion grounds reported largely as aggregates ("shifted"/"absent") limit independent audit, and parties file few objections.

Judicial balancing The Supreme Court declined to stay the Bihar SIR but directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar, ration card and voter ID as identity proof [6], later permitting Aadhaar as a twelfth standalone document while clarifying it is not proof of citizenship [7].

Purity and inclusion are complementary, not rival, ends: a roll is accurate only if no eligible citizen is missing from it. Disaggregated disclosure of deletion reasons, notice and hearing before removal, and automatic transfer of entries on migration would let the Commission cleanse rolls while honouring the promise of Article 326.