Electoral Systems

Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) June 24 order to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar is outrageous. The exercise’s timing – to be completed in a period of one month, that too four months ahead of elections for the state assembly – has raised serious doubts about ECI’s neutral functioning. Furthermore, the order for completing the near-impossible task of covering eight crore voters was implemented a day after the order was issued.

https://thewire.in/rights/bihar-sir-violates-legislative-intent-of-the-constituent-assembly-ambedkars-vision 

The order says that those not included in the 2003 electoral roll would have to provide documentary proof which, inter alia, includes that they and their parents are citizens of India. Those unable to submit such evidence and other documents listed by the ECI could be referred to the Citizens’ Tribunal as suspected foreign nationals.

In the face of public outcry and against the exercise, the ECI is sending conflicting messages. The Electoral Officer of Bihar in a newspaper ad appealed that eligible voters should fill up the forms distributed to them and submit the required documents later. In contrast, CEC Gyanesh Kumar on June 6 said that SIR was being conducted without any change in instructions. Such contradictory signals seem suspicious, especially when the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear several petitions against the SIR on July 10.

by S N Sahu

09/07/2025

According LiveLaw, a bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard the submission that voters who fail to submit the forms with the specified documents will face the harsh consequence of being deleted from the electoral roll, even if they have voted in elections for the last 20 years. This, they submitted, will lead to four crores out of eight crores thus exposed.

Supreme Court Agrees to Urgently List Petitions Challenging EC's Bihar Rolls Revision - The Wire

The lawyers added that the ECI’s decision to not accept Aadhaar or voter ID cards made it an ‘impossible’ task to be completed within a very strict timeline.

A day ago, former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa had written in a column that the timing of the announcement “amid the hysteria of citizenship checks, especially at state and municipal levels in some states, where ‘purification’ was equally important and was used for voter deletion, raises questions about the intent of the EC in the face of the huge population thus affected.”

Lavasa asked why the ECI was attaching value to the cut-off date of 2003, when the last roll revisions took place in Bihar.

07/07/2025

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed state election officers to destroy CCTV, webcasting and video footage of the election process after 45 days, if the verdict is not challenged in courts within that period, in a bid to curb what it says are “malicious narratives” using its electronic data.

https://thewire.in/government/election-commission-cctv-webcasting-video-footage-destroy-45-days 

20/06/2025

In recent years, the election process in India has been converted into one party’s fiefdom. Two sets of methods have been weaponised to subvert the verdict of the people, which are adopted at each stage of the electoral voting system. They are used before voting day, or on the voting day, and after the voting day.

https://thewire.in/government/election-malpractices-india-voter-rolls-evm 

Names from voter lists were allegedly deleted ahead of the Delhi elections, as well as Maharashtra state elections. Both occurred in quick succession after the Lok Sabha polls. This is an age-old method which has now been taken to new heights.

The root cause behind the voter registration manipulation is Rule 18 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which allows for deletion of voter data without notice or an opportunity to be heard by the affected citizen. At the EC’s assurance, the Supreme Court also disposed of a PIL which challenged the constitutional validity of Rule 18.

to insert travelling voters of one party from other states (with duplicate identity cards) to polling booths in a state where elections are taking place, by duplicating Electronic Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers across states. This method was used, allegedly in Maharashtra and Delhi, to general acceptance. I

there is always the possibility of toppling the government already formed by buying out the MLA or MP.

Over the period 2015 to 2024 as many as 10 state governments led by opposition parties were toppled by the ruling party government at the Union. This is done by simply buying the MLAs of the state ruling party, with the goal of making them support the party with the largest financial ability to buy MLAs. The defence of the ruling party is that this method has historically been adopted for a long time.

by Santosh Mehrotra and Jagdeep Chhokar

09/06/2025