Institutional accountability requires self-imposed disclosure norms to be honoured. Critically examine ECI's non-disclosure of the Elector-to-Population ratio during SIR.

The EP ratio — electors as a share of the projected 18+ population — is the Election Commission's own diagnostic for roll health, and its Manual on Electoral Rolls requires it to be placed in the public domain during and after every revision [2]. Its absence during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) makes accountability, not merely accuracy, the contested question.

Why the norm matters

• Roll preparation under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 is a statutory trust; the EP ratio is the only aggregate check on whether revision is cleaning or shrinking the electorate [4].
• A self-imposed norm carries moral force: a constitutional body that writes its own transparency standard weakens itself most by ignoring it.
• Under Article 326 (universal adult suffrage), exclusion is a rights question, not an administrative statistic.

The critique

• Maharashtra's draft roll excluded 2.07 crore electors (21.14%) of a 9.79 crore electorate — exceeding deletions in Uttar Pradesh, a far larger State [3].
• Using the Technical Group's population projections, analysts estimate the draft roll falls short by roughly 1.92 crore electors — close enough to the deletion figure to demand explanation [3].
• Withholding the EP ratio shifts the verification burden onto citizens and the press, inverting accountability.

The other side

• ECI stresses procedural safeguards: repeated BLO house visits, reasons recorded before deletion, and a statutory claims-and-objections window before the final roll [1].
• The draft roll is provisional; mid-process disclosure of an unsettled ratio could mislead.
• The Manual is administrative guidance, not a statutory command — a defence of legality, not of legitimacy.

Procedural safeguards and statistical disclosure are complements, not substitutes. Publishing constituency-wise EP ratios alongside draft and final rolls, with reasoned deletion categories, would let SIR's genuine purpose — an accurate roll — be demonstrated rather than asserted, strengthening the Commission's credibility as the guarantor of Article 326.