Universal adult franchise in India has been "a promise to be fulfilled rather than just a principle." Discuss how recent electoral roll revision exercises have affected this promise.

Article 326 guarantees adult suffrage. For the first general election in 1951-52, the ECI had to enrol a largely illiterate electorate from scratch, and since then it has treated the franchise as a promise it must actively deliver. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which began in Bihar in 2025, has made the rolls cleaner. It has also put that promise under strain.

How SIR advances the promise

• Roll integrity: The last intensive revision was in 2002-04. Since then, migration has created duplicate entries and dead voters have stayed on the rolls [4]. A clean roll protects every genuine vote.
• Legal footing: The Supreme Court (May 2026) held that SIR is traceable to Art. 324 read with Section 21(3), RP Act 1950. It found the exercise proportionate and said the notice-and-hearing safeguards were preserved [1].
• Course-correction: Aadhaar was admitted as an identity document by a court order of 8 September 2025 [1]. Bihar's final roll added 21.53 lakh electors after the draft stage [2].

How SIR strains the promise

• Scale of draft exclusion: In Bihar, the roll fell from 7.89 crore to 7.24 crore at the draft stage (about 65 lakh fewer) and ended at 7.42 crore, a net fall of about 47 lakh [2].
• Burden reversed: Voters had to prove their own eligibility with listed documents. Anyone wrongly dropped had to file a claim. This is hardest for the poor, migrants and less literate, the groups the franchise was meant to empower.
• Mid-course rule changes: Aadhaar was admitted only after the draft deletions [1], so the remedy came after people had been removed.
• Citizenship through enumeration: The Court had to direct that deletions on citizenship grounds be referred within four weeks to the Citizenship Act, 1955 authority, with notice and a hearing [1].
• Multiplied risk: Phase-II covered about 51 crore electors in 12 States/UTs [3].

Way forward

• Publish every deletion with its reason before the rolls are finalised.
• Accept Aadhaar at the enumeration stage, not only at the claims stage.
• Publish draft-versus-final figures for each phase.
• Pair the revision with SVEEP-style outreach for migrants and the poor.

SIR pursues a legitimate goal, but its design has moved the burden of staying on the roll from the state to the citizen. The ECI's own motto, "no eligible voter to be left out" [2], should guide the remaining phases. If accuracy and inclusion move together, Article 326 stays a promise kept and India advances the SDG 16.7 goal of inclusive, participatory decision-making.