"Voter-roll purification must not come at the cost of inclusion." Examine this in the context of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

Article 326 guarantees universal adult suffrage, so an electoral roll must be both accurate and complete. The Election Commission of India (ECI) says its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) aims to include every eligible citizen and exclude every ineligible one [1]. However, the ECI has recently had to limit a Form 6 "mapping declaration" to SIR States only [2]. That episode shows how a clean-up drive can quietly narrow inclusion.

Why purification is needed

• Roll integrity: duplicate, dead and shifted entries weaken the value of each vote. The SIR creates a fresh, verified baseline [1].
• Legacy mapping: Bihar's SIR used the 2003 roll as its reference and put it online so electors could trace themselves or their parents [3].
• Re-enlistment route: during an SIR, Form 6 also restores electors deleted at the enumeration stage [2].

How it can erode inclusion

• Documentary burden: first-time voters born after the reference roll, migrants and women who moved after marriage struggle to link themselves or their parents to that old roll.
• Scope creep: the declaration was meant for SIR States. Online, it became a mandatory field that blocked fresh applications everywhere. Election Commissioners flagged this in May and August 2026 [2].
• Legal competence: Form 6 is part of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The Centre made these Rules under Sec. 28, RP Act, 1950 [4]. An online field that was never notified in effect added a new condition for enrolment.
• Opacity: the ECI corrected the problem through a press release and quiet changes to the online form. It has published no data on how many applications were blocked [2].

Reconciling the two goals

• Extend the SIR's own safeguards to Form 6 refusals: BLO visits, draft-roll publication, claims and objections, speaking orders and appeals to the DM and CEO [5].
• Put any declaration on a legal footing by amending Form 6 through notification [4], and check online forms against the notified text.
• Upload reference rolls in every SIR State [3], and publish rejection figures.

Purification and inclusion work together. A roll that is clean but incomplete is as flawed as one that is inclusive but inflated. A time-bound, legally notified SIR with strong safeguards, where the State rather than the voter carries the burden of proof, fulfils Article 326 and SDG 16.7 on inclusive decision-making. The ECI's own rollback is a step in that direction.