The prescience of Sandhu’s warning became evident during the rollout in Bihar, which concluded on September 30. The exercise led to widespread panic, with voters scrambling to procure birth certificates and old land records. The electorate in Bihar reportedly shrank by 6% following the revision. The EC also had to extend deadlines following reports of the deaths of several Booth Level Officers (BLOs) due to the intense workload.
Electoral Systems
On 27 October 2025, the Election Commission of India launched what it called a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across nine states and three Union Territories. By early January, provisional lists revealed an astonishing outcome: nearly 6.5 crore citizens had been removed from the electorate. This is not routine correction. It is a constitutional rupture presented as administrative maintenance. https://thewire.in/rights/when-the-electorate-itself-is-edited-the-constitutional-crisis-of-mass-disenfranch
The question before the republic is no longer administrative but existential: if the state can erase 65 million citizens from electoral rolls without census data, without parliamentary debate, without transparent criteria, and without meaningful due process, does universal adult franchise exist as a right – or merely as constitutional ornament?
Anand Teltumbde
12/01/2026
Twelve days since the publication of the draft electoral rolls, a booth-level officer (BLO) in Bengal has died, allegedly by suicide. A note he purportedly wrote before taking his life says that he could not bear the pressure of the the special intensive revision exercise.
Bengal BLO Who 'Died by Suicide' Was an 'Extremely Popular Headmaster,' Say Villagers - The Wire
The headmaster of the school has to send mid-day meal information of the students to a specific app at the fixed time every day. All headmasters who are serving as BLOs are also required to do this. On top of that, SIR work has been unrelenting. “Even in this situation, Haradhan went door to door in the village, distributing SIR forms, helping people fill them out correctly and collecting them,” said Amar Mahali, a resident of Rajakata village.
After this incident, several BLOs of Bankura district stated that after the publication of the draft voter list, BLOs were being asked to correct errors such as missing names or mistakes in names across various areas quickly. During the hearings, a Union government employee would be present for such cases, adding to the fear of job-related consequences.
Additionally, BLOs were required to upload all this information via their mobile phones, despite not having received proper digital training. As a result, even minor mistakes caused panic. On top of this, there is constant pressure came from concern blocks and higher authorities.
30/12/2025
Today, December 9, 2025, the Lok Sabha holds a crucial discussion on “electoral reforms”. Central to this debate is the proposal for One Nation, One Election (ONOE). While the government frames this as a matter of administrative efficiency – citing financial savings, the prevention of “policy paralysis”, and reduced voter “fatigue” – the counter-argument suggests these are alibis rather than justifications.
Analysed through a federalist lens, the proposal appears as a project of political engineering designed to strip away the mask of “good governance” and convert the diverse, federal Union of India into a unitary monolith. The concern is that this politics aims to flatten the multi-layered Indian voter into a singular consumer of a nationalised leader’s image.
the resistance to ONOE is not about time, but about power. The proposal seems to be an attempt to bypass the states, insulate the Executive, and centralise the narrative. If passed, the republic risks transforming into a manageable corporation where voters are shareholders allowed to attend the Annual General Meeting once every five years, but barred from speaking in the interim.
by pavan Korada
11/12/2025
The SIR exercise, which began with Bihar and has since expanded to other states, requires existing electors to fill out enumeration forms and provide additional documents to prove their eligibility.
IE reports that on June 24, the day the order was issued, commissioner Sandhu wrote a dissenting note. “Care should be taken that genuine voters/citizens, particularly old, sick, PwD (persons with disabilities), poor and other vulnerable groups do not feel harassed and are facilitated,” Sandhu wrote. https://thewire.in/government/harassment-fears-deleted-citizenship-clause-inside-the-election-commissions-sir-d
by Pavan Korada
04/12/2025
Two booth-level officers (BLOs) from Uttar Pradesh and one from Rajasthan died in the past three days – their families citing increased workload amid the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls underway across 12 states and Union Territories.
Several such cases of BLO deaths have come to light in recent months, with opposition parties questioning the government and the Election Commission (EC) over their apathy towards the plight of the ground-level workers.
01/12/2025
- Supreme Court Takes Over SIR Dispute, Halts High Court Cases
- Deleted by Design: The Institutional Disenfranchisement of Women in Bihar
- Election Commission Announces SIR Across 12 States and UTs; Leaves Out Assam
- In today’s India, some will not be Indians no matter how many documents they possess
- In today’s India, some will not be Indians no matter how many documents they possess