Revision of electoral rolls lies at the intersection of administrative efficiency and the right to vote. Critically analyse the recent Special Intensive Revision exercise in this light.

The electoral roll decides who may vote. As the Supreme Court observed in ADR v. ECI (2026), disputes over rolls "are never merely administrative" [1]. The Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) began in Bihar in 2025 and was later extended to 9 States and 3 UTs [2][3]. It tests whether a clean roll can be achieved without excluding eligible voters.

Administrative efficiency: the case for SIR

• Roll purity: it aims to remove dead, shifted and duplicate entries while ensuring that "no eligible voter is excluded" [2].
• Legal footing: the Court held the SIR traceable to Section 21(3), RP Act, 1950 read with Article 324. It also found the exercise proportionate, with safeguards against arbitrary exclusion [1].
• Eligibility check: the ECI may make a limited citizenship enquiry, because Article 326 restricts the vote to citizens. Its effect is confined to the roll [1].
• Phased rollout: covering States in phases spreads the load on booth-level machinery [3].

Right to vote: the concerns

• Document burden: Aadhaar was initially left out of the accepted documents. The Court had to order its inclusion (Sept 2025) [1]. This exposed the risk to the poor, migrants and people without papers.
• Wrongful deletions: the Court let people wrongly struck off as "absent, dead, shifted or duplicate" seek judicial review [1]. This shows that errors were expected.
• Citizenship by proxy: the ECI's view is not final on citizenship. Such deletions must be referred within 4 weeks to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act [1]. Until then, the voter is effectively disenfranchised.
• Late remedy: Article 329 limits court intervention during an election. A deletion made close to polling may be corrected only after the vote.
• Trust deficit: under the 2023 Act, the government holds a majority on the Selection Committee, and the committee can act with a seat vacant [4]. Neutrality was better secured by the Law Commission's proposed PM–LoP–CJI panel [5]. With the current design, deletions are easily seen as partisan.

In sum, the SIR is lawful and serves roll integrity, but being lawful does not automatically make it trusted. The way forward is to:

• publish deletion lists with reasons before polling;
• accept widely held documents;
• complete citizenship references within the Court's time limits [1];
• restore a neutral selection panel [5].

Efficiency would then serve universal adult franchise (Article 326) and SDG 16.7's goal of inclusive, representative decision-making.