SIR: The Mega Assault on "India" : The Story So Far | Sukla Sen

Prologue

AA. Early Warnings:

I/II. Make no mistake.

It’s an attempted mega-assault on the "India" that was brought into being by the epic Indian freedom struggle on August 15 1947, the day when the shackle of foreign colonial rule was finally shaken off.
Arguably, the most major as yet.

Universal adult franchise, along with "free" election, every five years or so, is one of the very cornerstones of the Indian political system — its much vaunted, even if flawed, electoral "democracy".

The SIR, an unprecedented move any whichever way, is structured to disenfranchise millions and millions — the marginalised (and targeted) ones in particular by making near-impossible demands in terms of documents submission and that too within an absurdly tight time schedule.

On top of this, those who will be disenfranchised via this summary exercise will also face the nightmarish prospect of losing citizenship as well. Even if that process will presumably be a bit cumbersome.

All in all, if this already unleashed process — which in due course is slated to be extended to (the) whole of India — goes unabated, will radically change "India", as it stood till now.

(Excerpted from The SIR Underway: ’Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Dhulia to hear Bihar electoral roll revision case on July 10 [today]’, dtd. 10 07 25, at <https://groups.google.com/g/> .)

II. The whole process of SIR is designed to (rather surreptitiously) convert universal adult franchise into some form of limited adult franchise.
*The disadvantaged would get eliminated.*

The trick is essentially twofold:

I. Ask the voter to prove that she is an eligible voter — that means that apart from other things she will have to also prove that she is an Indian citizen.
II. For that (i) ask for (nearly) impossible documents and (ii) make the process of determination opaque and thereby arbitrary.

By conducting the whole operation within an absurdly short time-frame, major chunks of migrant workers would get automatically eliminated by being unavailable at that point of time.

*That’s not the end of it.*

*The disenfranchisement would most likely lead to selective stripping of citizenship rights — again on a massive scale. With all its horrendous consequences.*

(Excerpted from On the SIR: A Micro Note, dtd. 21 11 25, at <https://groups.google.com/> .)

BB. What is so "Special" in "Special Intensive Revisions" ?

The 2025–2026 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) represents a historic departure from the previous eight intensive revisions conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) between 1951 and 2004. While past iterations functioned as structural roll expansions to ensure voter inclusion, the current SIR introduces a highly distinct operational and legal framework.

The critical distinctions between the current SIR and previous Intensive Revisions include:

Feature / Metric	Previous Intensive Revisions (e.g., 2002–2004)	Current Special Intensive Revision (2025–2026)
Baseline Presumption	Presumption of Eligibility: Existing electors on the roll were legally presumed valid. Revisions focused on house-to-house updates using the current list as a stable baseline.	Re-establishment from Scratch: Existing electors must explicitly submit enumeration forms and verification documents to make it onto the draft roll.
Burden of Proof	Borne by the State: The onus fell on election machinery to verify, locate, and prove if a voter was deceased or permanently shifted before deletion.	Borne by the Citizen: The burden of proof shifts entirely to the individual elector to re-verify eligibility and satisfy automated parameters.
Citizenship Linkage	Facilitation Approach: Focused purely on resident verification. Voter ID cards (EPIC) and customary local proofs were fully accepted.	Verification Mandate: Combines enumeration with citizenship verification. Voters must match against old 2002–04 lists or provide specific documentation.
Role of Technology	Manual Verification: Relied heavily on physical door-to-door validation and comprehensive cross-checks by field supervisors.	Algorithmic Deletion: Heavily automated via software-generated "logical discrepancies" that flags and draft-excludes unmapped profiles.
Electorate Impact	Net Expansion: Historically, every single previous intensive revision resulted in a net increase in the total volume of the electorate.	Net Shrinkage: The first exercise in Indian history to result in massive electorate contractions, deleting over 13 crore (130 million) names during draft stages.

(The above note, sans the tagline, has been generated by Google AI, in response to a specific query the essence of which is presented in the tag, and is reproduced verbatim.)

In The Beginning: A Notification and a Challenge (June 2025 — May 2026)

The present story, or rather the unfolding cruel drama, formally opened on 24 June 2025 with the Election Commission of India (ECI) ordering a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls, just a few months ahead of the State’s Assembly election. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) moved the Supreme Court in early July (W.P.(C) No. 640/2025), and a batch of petitions followed — from civil-society bodies, activists, individual voters and MPs drawn from across the Opposition.[1]

The petitioners’ case was, in essence, the one already spelt out in the Prologue. The SIR shifted the onus: electors presumed eligible until then now had to prove it. The list of acceptable documents — Aadhaar and ration cards initially left out — was arbitrary and a recipe for mass exclusion. The ECI could inquire into eligibility for the rolls but could not itself adjudicate citizenship. The compressed timeline left little room for notice, hearing or appeal. Articles 14, 19, 21, 325 and 326, the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 were invoked; the charge of a de facto NRC without statutory sanction was pressed as well.

The Court’s early course was cautious. On 10 July 2025 it declined to stay the exercise but urged the ECI to consider Aadhaar, EPIC and ration cards.[1A] On 8 September it directed that Aadhaar be accepted as a twelfth document — as proof of identity, not of citizenship.[2] The exercise went on. The Bihar Assembly election was held in November 2025, results were declared and a new government installed — all on the rolls produced by the contested SIR, and months before the Court’s final word. The election, in other words, was conducted and the new was elected on the basis of an electoral roll without final determination of its bitterly contested legitimacy.

Nor did the ECI wait. On 27 October 2025 a second phase was announced for 12 States and Union Territories, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh among them. Fresh petitions followed; on 11 November the Court issued notice and asked the High Courts to keep their own petitions in abeyance.[3]

The Verdict of 27 May 2026: Power Affirmed, Procedure Left Open

After reserving judgment on 29 January 2026, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi delivered its 124-page verdict on 27 May in Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India.[4] It upheld the SIR. The power, the Court held, is traceable to Article 324 read with Section 21(3) of the 1950 Act; a special procedure departing from the routine revision is not unconstitutional for that reason alone; and the measures were neither manifestly arbitrary nor disproportionate.

On citizenship, the petitioners got half of what they had asked for. The ECI may make a limited enquiry into citizenship, solely to decide inclusion in, or deletion from, the roll. Such a deletion is not a declaration of non-citizenship. Where a name on the 2003 Bihar roll is struck off on doubt about citizenship, the ECI must refer the case within four weeks to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955 — which must decide after notice and hearing, and ideally before the next election.[4] Aadhaar, once again, was held to be proof of identity and not of citizenship.[2]

Two further points. First, the Court did not halt the nationwide exercise. The third SIR order — for 16 States and 3 Union Territories — had been issued on 14 May, thirteen days before the verdict, and Phase III went ahead.[5] Second, the petitioners’ side was, as reported, deeply disappointed: ADR called the judgment disappointing, Yogendra Yadav argued that the question had effectively been settled when the Bihar poll was allowed to proceed, and Mahua Moitra said it endorsed hurried and discriminatory practices.

What the judgment settled is the ECI’s power. What it left open is the manner of its exercise — which is precisely what the rest of this account is about.

From One State to Thirty: The Arithmetic of Deletion

The SIR began as a pilot in Bihar and, in three phases, has since covered some thirty States and Union Territories. The draft-stage numbers tell their own story.

Phase	Announced	Electors before	Draft-stage deletions	Share
I — Bihar	24 Jun 2025	7.89 crore	65 lakh	8%
II — 12 States/UTs	27 Oct 2025	50.9 crore	6.5 crore	13%
III — 16 States + 3 UTs	14 May 2026	36.7 crore	6.1 crore	17%+
All three phases	—	95.5 crore	13.4 crore	14%

Shares are computed from the figures cited;[5][6][9] Bihar’s draft-stage number rose to over 68 lakh after verification.[13]

Draft-stage deletions thus came to roughly 13.4 crore names — about 14 per cent of the pre-revision rolls (13.37 crore in one tally,[9] 13.39 crore in another[11]). The rate has risen with each phase rather than fallen.[9]

Three caveats are in order. First, these are draft-stage figures. The claims-and-objections window and the appeals bring some names back, and net reductions are lower — Phase II, for instance, is put at around 5.2 crore net.[5] Second, the proportions swing sharply with urbanisation and migration: Uttar Pradesh’s draft roll fell from 15.44 crore to 12.56 crore (about 18.7 per cent),[7] West Bengal’s from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore at draft stage,[8] and Delhi’s by roughly a third.[10] Third, the bulk of the exclusions are not proved ineligibility at all, but the ECI’s categories of absent, shifted, dead or duplicate — in many places simply the non-return of an enumeration form, or a failure to map an elector to the 2002-04 roll.

It is this last point that bears on the citizenship rationale — and it is where the Prologue’s concern meets the numbers. The Union Home Minister described the SIR in Parliament as a policy to detect, delete and deport infiltrators, reasoning that those deleted had to be non-nationals since citizens would have produced proof;[54][55] the ECI itself had cited the inclusion of foreign illegal immigrants among its reasons for the exercise.[56] Yet the ECI’s software offered no option to tag a deleted voter as a foreign national, and RTI replies from over a hundred Bihar electoral registration officers recorded no non-citizens identified, according to The Reporters’ Collective.[11]

Now a Hindustan Times tally, reported last week, puts the number of suspected foreigners identified at about 1,600 — in six States (Karnataka, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Kerala, Goa and Mizoram) whose electorate runs to some 9.86 crore.[55][56] Four other States said they kept no such data, and a senior ECI official said States had never been asked to collect it; any such cases, he said, would sit under the ’Others’ head of the absent-shifted-dead-duplicate tally.[55][56] Karnataka accounts for 716, of whom 545 are Nepali citizens in Bengaluru North, against well over 99 lakh names struck off its final roll.[55][56]

Jairam Ramesh, sharing the report, put it bluntly: nearly 10 crore people had gone through the SIR in those States to find 1,600 ’foreigners’; the other 20 States and Union Territories supplied no data because the ECI had not asked for any; the Home Minister, he said, was lying; and the exercise had been meant to see large sections of Indians lose their right to vote. He renewed the demands that Gyanesh Kumar go, that the SIR be suspended and that ECINET be revamped.[57] The gap between the scale of deletion and the count of detected foreigners is, at the very least, the thing that needs explaining.

Bengal: Where the Algorithm Met the Courts (February — April 2026)

West Bengal is where the SIR’s most contentious tool first surfaced in full view. Mamata Banerjee’s petition, along with those of TMC MPs Dola Sen and Derek O’Brien, challenged the exercise there. The Court took the matter up on 4 February 2026 and heard it again on 9 February, extending the date for the final roll by a week and cautioning against careless notices founded on name discrepancies. The draft roll of 16 December 2025 had already shrunk the electorate from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore.[8]

Then came the "logical discrepancy". In plain terms, it is a flag raised by software when an elector’s entry cannot be reconciled with the entries of parents or grandparents on the base roll — a mismatch in a parent’s name, an implausible age gap, a failure to link.[14] The term has never been defined in any official communication, and the list of triggers was later expanded to as many as eleven categories.[15] The numbers vary with the stage at which they are counted: well over a crore notices at first;[15] 50 to 80 lakh cases awaiting adjudication, in the Court’s own orders;[16][17] about 60 lakh flagged and some 27 lakh eventually left off, by one press count.[14]

What followed was without precedent for a roll revision. Citing a "trust deficit" between the State government and the ECI, the Court on 20 February ordered serving and former judicial officers to adjudicate the logical-discrepancy cases.[16] Within days it allowed judges from Odisha and Jharkhand to be drafted in — 50 lakh cases and 250 officers meant at least 80 days — and modified its order to bring in civil judges with three years’ experience.[16][17] On 10 March it laid down a framework and an appellate layer; the ECI notified 19 appellate tribunals on 20 March.[18] By 1 April, 47.4 lakh objections had been cleared, with some 700 judicial officers drawn from three States.[19] On 6 April the Court asked for a committee of three former senior judges to standardise tribunal procedure.[20] And on 13 April, invoking Article 142, it ordered that any excluded voter whose appeal was decided by 21 or 27 April be allowed to vote in the polls of 23 and 29 April.[21] By one account of these orders, the Court also made it clear that a place on a logical-discrepancy list did not by itself confer a power of deletion without human application of mind.

An exercise that needed the Supreme Court to improvise a parallel judicial machinery — hundreds of judges, nineteen tribunals and a poll-eve order under Article 142 — is not a routine revision. It is also the clearest illustration of what the table in the Prologue calls algorithmic deletion: the machine flags; the citizen, and then a judge, has to prove otherwise.

Fourteen Objections: The Indian Express Investigation (23 — 26 September 2026)

On 23 September 2026 The Indian Express carried an investigation, that would prove a sort of game-changer, by Ritika Chopra: Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected on record at least fourteen times over ten months to SIR-related decisions and orders — four of them on a single day.[22][23] The substance, as reported:

• Form 6. In May, Joshi recorded that the statutory form for new voters could not be changed without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Sandhu concurred, later calling the added question about the applicant’s parents or grandparents on the last SIR roll "unauthorised and illegal".[23][24] The online form was modified in July.[24]
• The roll database. Joshi flagged a gradual centralisation of the electoral-roll database and proposed an audit to certify that no one but the concerned statutory officer could alter entries. In August, Sandhu noted that State-level officers had reported incomplete access to ERONet.[22][23]
• The work-allocation order. Both wrote separately to the Cabinet Secretary after an internal order that, as reported, threatened to concentrate in the Commission centrally the powers to add or delete names.[26]

The ECI’s first response came the same day: it acknowledged the notes but described them as part of normal decision-making.[25] On 26 September, after a special meeting of the three-member Commission, it asserted that all SIR orders had the unanimous approval of the Commission, that the declaration attached to Form 6 had been upheld by the Supreme Court, and that the original Form 6 would be used outside SIR periods.[26] The Opposition called it damage control and demanded the CEC’s resignation or prosecution, Jairam Ramesh describing the Form 6 change as illegal and unconstitutional;[27] the ruling side treated the matter as settled.[31] On the night of 30 September the ECI withdrew the SIR declaration from the online Form 6 in States where the revision is complete.[28]

A fair reading must register what the report does not say. Senior advocates, among them Abhishek Singhvi and Shyam Diwan, observed that nothing in it suggests the other two Commissioners opposed the SIR as such; the dissents concern modalities, and the report, in their view, adds no fresh ground to challenge the exercise’s legality.[29] That may well be so. But "modalities" is exactly where, on the Prologue’s account, the harm resides: forms, software, access, and who may add or delete a name. An RTI reply to the transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj said the ECI had taken no decision in 2025 to initiate the SIR countrywide;[30] who decided what, and when, remains a live question in the petitions.

Petitions, Notices and a Clarification (25 September — 15 October)

The first petition followed within days. Rakesh Kumar Singh, a Patna-based social activist, sought a writ of quo warranto against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar — asking by what authority he acts as though he alone held the powers of a multi-member body. Delhi lawyer Shailendra Mani Tripathi filed a connected plea, and TMC MP Dola Sen moved the Court separately on Form 6.[32][47]

The hearing of 5 October produced three notable moments. The Court issued notice but declined to suspend the CEC ex parte, asking who would conduct elections were he suspended.[32][41] It observed that the immunity the 2023 Act gives Election Commissioners is not available even to judges.[33] And the Chief Justice made it clear that the Court had neither approved nor rejected the modified Form 6 — squarely contradicting the ECI’s claim of 26 September.[34] Jairam Ramesh’s reaction was characteristically blunt: the CEC, he said, had quite plainly lied.[35]

The Court also said something that is easily overlooked. Under the 1993 amendment and the 2023 Act, where unanimity fails a decision can be taken by majority, and a decision found wrong can always be annulled.[36] Dissent, in other words, is not by itself fatal. The question is whether the Commission, as a body, decided.

On 12 October the Opposition took the matter to the streets and to the Court. A "March for Democracy" towards the Supreme Court, led by Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Priyanka Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, ended with a writ petition — Rahul Gandhi v. Election Commission of India — filed by Gandhi and a group of INDIA-bloc leaders (reports put the number at ten or eleven in all).[37] Besides Kharge, the co-petitioners are reported to include Tejashwi Yadav, Saugata Roy, Supriya Sule, Sanjay Raut, D. Raja, M. A. Baby and E. T. Mohammed Basheer. The petition, W.P.(C) No. 1351/2026, takes on the SIR and the CEC’s conduct; the reliefs variously sought include an independent judicial inquiry headed by retired Supreme Court judges, preservation of file notings and internal communications, a freeze on automated deletions without notice, and a declaration that the nationwide SIR is invalid ab initio. Notice was issued on 15 October.[38]

The litigation has other strands too. On 13 October the Court issued notice on ADR’s challenge to the lifetime immunity under Section 16 of the 2023 Act, tagging it with a similar petition filed by the NGO Lok Prahari in November 2025.[39] And Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri have gone to the Court on Delhi, seeking disclosure of which voters were served notices, and why, and an easier route back for those removed from the list.[40]

The Affidavit and the Answer (26 — 27 October)

The ECI’s reply came on 26 October: a 248-page, fifteen-point counter-affidavit, filed in Rakesh Kumar Singh’s case and deposed to by Deputy Election Commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu.[42][43] Its main planks:

• All three SIR orders — of 24 June 2025, 27 October 2025 and 14 May 2026 — were unanimous decisions of the Commission, in compliance with Article 324 and Section 18 of the 2023 Act.[42]
• Notes, queries or suggestions made by a Commissioner as a file moves are not decisions of the Commission. In urgent matters, approvals are obtained electronically and recorded on the file later.[43]
• Form 6 was not amended — only the Centre can do that under the 1960 Rules. The SIR-linked declaration was a separate document, and from 21 October the online application has been split accordingly.[42]
• The petitions rest on a single newspaper report, which is not evidence; and a plea to restrain the CEC is not maintainable, since he can be removed only in the manner of a Supreme Court judge.[42][43]
• The affidavit was itself approved by all three Commissioners, Sandhu and Joshi included.[44] As for the Bengal appeals, they were filed by officers of the State’s Chief Electoral Officer’s office in compliance with the Supreme Court’s orders.[48]

That is the ECI position. Whether it answers the charge is quite another matter. The Indian Express’s own report on the affidavit carried the headline that the decisions were unanimous, but the big question remained unanswered.[51] What that question is — and what the affidavit does and does not address — is set out in the next section.

Jairam Ramesh’s response on 27 October was to call the affidavit "deceptive, deceitful and duplicitous", and the Congress issued a six-point rebuttal: on the declaration attached to Form 6, where the ECI is said to have shifted its stand after the Court contradicted it; on the approval of SIR orders; on centralisation through ECINET; on the functioning of the Commission’s IT division; on alleged misuse of Form 7; and on the affidavit’s failure to deny the media revelations.[46] In Court, Menaka Guruswamy, appearing for Dola Sen, said the affidavit in effect accepts the tampering with Form 6 and then seeks to justify it. The ECI’s counsel, Maninder Singh, dismissed that as rhetoric.[47][41]

The bench — the Chief Justice, Justice Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana — gave the petitioners ten days to file rejoinders and listed the matter for 17 November, after the Diwali break.[49][50] Senior advocates asked that files, file notings and internal communications be preserved. The Chief Justice’s reply was brief: "We are aware of everything. Don’t worry, we will examine."[50]

The Question Left Unanswered: Form 6, ECINET, Goa and Bengal (late October 2026)

The Express’s reading of the affidavit turns on a simple point of timing.[51] In one sense the affidavit is a defence of unanimity: approved for filing by all three members, it maintains that the major SIR decisions were taken collectively, and that notes recording suggestions, observations or queries by individual Commissioners are part of the consultative process, not decisions. That would be an answer, the Express observes, had the two Commissioners objected before the decisions were taken. Most of the fourteen notes were written afterwards — after a decision had been taken, a system built, an order issued or a case filed — and what they record is that the Commissioners had not been told.

The issue, on this reading, was never whether the Commission eventually approved. It is whether two of its members were consulted and informed about actions carried out in its name. The affidavit sets out the Commission’s position on how decisions are formally taken; by itself, it does not resolve the concerns recorded about how the process worked in practice. Four episodes show the gap.

Form 6. In May, before any change, Joshi recorded that the form could not be altered without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and Sandhu concurred. The online form was changed anyway, in July. Sandhu learnt of it from a newspaper report and, in August, called the inserted declaration unauthorised and illegal. The affidavit now says the SIR declaration was a separate document and not an amendment — while conceding that the way it appeared online could be construed as an amendment, and that certain steps taken by officers needed correcting. On 21 October the ECI’s ER Division decided to separate the statutory form from the declaration. What the affidavit does not say is who approved the online implementation in July, or how it went ahead two months after two of three members had recorded in writing that it should not. It says the declaration was "entered into the online page of Form 6"; it does not say by whom.

ECINET. The affidavit says the Electoral Registration Officer remains the statutory authority, that no entry is added, deleted or modified except on the ERO’s order, and that the software only enables the officer to exercise those powers. It also sets out new arrangements: a committee, with experts from IIT Mumbai and IISc Bengaluru, to review the platform’s compliance with the law, and scrutiny of new IT modules before approval. These are significant steps. They are also, almost to the word, what Joshi proposed on 29 May — a committee with an outside IIT expert to certify that no one except the concerned statutory authorities could change the database. Sandhu endorsed it in July; on 14 August he recorded that the fate of the two notes was not known to him. The affidavit presents the committee as the Commission’s decision of 26 and 30 September, and does not mention the May proposal.

Nor does it touch the notes about what had already been built. In April Sandhu recorded that the IT division had developed many new modules and portals without bringing them to the Commission, and that he had learnt of them from the media. In August he recorded that field officers were reporting they could not use the system to do what the law required of them. A declaration that the ERO remains the legal authority does not, on its own, establish that the officer could implement every decision through the system when those notes were written.

Goa. The affidavit refers to the 97 voters left off the final roll, 88 of whom, it says, have since applied through Form 6. That records a later development. It does not explain why, in February, the software did not allow the Goa EROs’ decisions to be implemented — despite eight requests in seven days from the State’s election office to be allowed to reverse the deletions, and a note from the Commission’s own Deputy Election Commissioner that the IT system cannot block necessary action.

West Bengal. The affidavit says the appeals against orders restoring voters to the roll were filed by officers in the State Chief Electoral Officer’s office, that "these matters were not brought to the Commission", and that the officers had authority to file them under the Supreme Court’s orders. Joshi had asked first: on 7 August, after a newspaper report on the appeals, his office sought the factual position from the officer in charge of the State. Five days later Sandhu put five questions to the same officer, recording that Joshi had told him he did not have the details. The affidavit answers two of them — whether the Commission had filed the appeals, and who had — and, on who authorised them, falls back on the Court’s orders.

But the answer raises a question of its own. Sandhu’s note records that the State’s Chief Electoral Officer told him she too had no information about the details; the affidavit now says the appeals were filed by officers of her office, citing a letter from that office dated 22 October. It does not reconcile the two. Nor does it say how lakhs of appeals came to be filed on near-identical grounds, whether any case was examined individually, or how an exercise on this scale proceeded in the Commission’s name without the Commission — or, by her own account, the State’s chief electoral officer — knowing.[58]

The July order. This is the one episode in which the two Commissioners acted rather than asked. A senior officer, within hours of being given temporary charge of the Commission’s administration, issued an order redistributing work among its officers. Joshi’s letter to the Cabinet Secretary records that when he asked the Administration Division for the file, it was not provided. The affidavit says the order was never implemented after the two Commissioners’ joint direction, and that their letters related to it. It does not say why an order of that kind was issued without the Commission in the first place, why the file was withheld from a member, or what has happened to the officer, who is not named. On the documents themselves, it says only that the Commission has neither released nor authorised the release of any internal note to any news agency — which contests how they reached the public, not what they say.

The affidavit is now the Commission’s collective position before the Supreme Court. The test, as the Express puts it, is whether the explanations and corrective measures it describes resolve the specific questions raised by the record — and those concerns were about learning things after they had been done. Seen from the side of the electoral roll, the pattern is the same: the machinery is built first, and explained afterwards.

Three Additional Issues

Phantom Decision: No One Decided SIR!

Perhaps the most shocking,even if very little talked of, revelation during this period, beyond the explosive IE exposè, itself, is about the SIR’s origin. The revelation that no formal decision was ever made by the ECI to launch it. RTI queries by transparency activists, including Anjali Bhardwaj, revealed an institutional void, with the ECI’s principal secretary stating that the decision was not made by the Commission. With the putatively autonomous quasi-judicial ECI disowning the decision, inevitably the question arises: Who decided? With what authority? What procedure was followed?
Is some sort of dangerous lawless tyranny at the very helm the order of the day? And no one is answerable for that?[59]

Bihar Poll

Similarly, the Bihar poll was held, the results declared and new assembly constituted on the basis of an electoral roll with uncertain legal validity. The whole exercise would be validated only post facto.
Something surely quite extraordinary.

Bengal Poll

In a broadly similar vein, Mr. O P Rawat, a former CEC has pointed out that in West Bengal, elections proceeded despite ongoing finalisations of voter lists, violating Section 21 of the law, which mandates using previously published electoral rolls if the current ones are incomplete.[60] Millions fell victim and lost their legitimate voting rights to this irregular practice.

All these taken together put a serious question mark not only over the role and functioning of the ECI, but also on the integrity of the judicial mechanism in place.

Where Matters Stand (as of 30 October 2026)

As regards the issue vis-à-vis the Supreme Court is concerned, three things can be said with some confidence.

First, the SIR’s legal validity, as tested in Bihar, stands affirmed.[29]

Second, the questions about decision-making, Form 6, the roll database and the logical-discrepancy mechanism are now squarely before the Court — rejoinders are due around 6 November and the next listing is 17 November.[49] Also pending are the immunity challenges, the Delhi plea for disclosure, and the finalisation of the Phase III rolls, expected between September and December 2026.[5]

Third, a loose end. The four-week deadline for referring Bihar’s doubtful-citizenship deletions to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act fell on 24 June 2026.[4] As it appears that there is no documentary evidence to the effect that even a single such name has been forwarded in compliance with the said SC order even though 13.4 crore names have been lined up for deletion! Never mind that the detection and filtering out of "infiltrators" is all too often tom-tommed as the very raisons d’être of this gigantic operation though.[57]

Afterword

At the end, it is necessary to note that although the caption of this analytical account has been tagged as the "story so far", this is obviously an exaggeration. Not only are many details missed out, which, in a way, is just inevitable, there are two very large and conspicuous gaps.

One, even though the last Bengal poll has pretty well figured above and some major irregularities have been duly flagged, the very enormity of the assault on the integrity of the election process that was carried out here has not been even nearly captured. Not to forget that it is the Bengal saga that offers us a revealing glimpse of this fiendish project at its ugliest.[61]

Second, even more important, the account above almost exclusively restricts itself to discussing the legal and procedural aspects of SIR. Mostly flaws and pitfalls. It consciously steers clear of what is happening on the streets. Makes no mention of the massive protests. Deals almost exclusively with courtroom battles and newsroom blasts. In the end, however, these protests on the streets are going to prove at least as crucial, if not even more, as the battles in the Court or on the parliament floor or in social media spaces. In determining the shape of things to come. More so, under the obtaining situation of nearly complete institutional capture.

30 October 2026

Addendum

Today, 1 November 2026, history is being again rewritten in Delhi’s fabled Ramlila Maidan. At least that is what is being attempted. Hence the following brief note, stepping outside the self-defined limits.

The Congress-led INDIA Bloc, with Rahul Gandhi as its blazing logo, is organising a massive protest rally, Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao (Save Vote! Save Country!), asking for sacking of the CEC Gyanesh Kumar and trashing of SIR.[62][62A] Apart from many others, a major peasant organisation from North India, BKU, is also joining.[63] The very recently born CJP, that just the other day shot to great prominence by spearheading a massive student agitation against "paper leaks" in exams and succeeding in obtaining the resignation of the concerned Union Minister, after initially conveying its support has now announced its decision not to physically participate.[64]

10:30 Hrs.

The march has begun: <https://www.youtube.com/live/v-_ybEIY1qU>!

13:00 Hrs.

References

[1] ADR Document, 12 January 2026, at https://www.adrindia.org/content/appeal-wont-abate-for-not-adding-legal-heirs-if-interest-of-deceased-is-sufficiently-represented-by-others-supreme-cour.

[1A] ’Supreme Court Refuses To Stay Bihar Voter List Revision but Asks ECI To Allow Aadhaar, Ration Card as ID Proof’, Moneylife, July 2025, at https://www.moneylife.in/ article/supreme-court-refuses- to-stay-bihar-voter-list- revision-but-asks-eci-to- allow-aadhaar-ration-card-as- id-proof/77640.html

[2] ’Accept Aadhaar as 12th valid document for voter roll revision in Bihar, SC tells ECI’, WION, September 2025, at https://embed.wionews.com/ india-news/accept-aadhaar-as- 12th-valid-document-for-voter- roll-revision-in-bihar-sc- tells-eci-1757333090668

[3] ’Supreme Court seeks ECI’s response on pleas challenging SIR in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal’, The Leaflet, November 2025, at https://theleaflet.in/leaflet- reports/supreme-court-seeks- ecis-response-on-pleas- challenging-sir-in-tamil-nadu- west-bengal

[4] ’Supreme Court (May 27) Judgement on SIR in Bihar: Some (Assessed) Salient Implications’ by Sukla Sen, May 31 2026, at https://groups.google.com/g/ aisf-mumbai/c/7ziakFw8QLE

[5] SIR phase-wise explainer (Phase III launch on 14 May 2026; Phase II net deletions), gk365, at https://gk365.in/?p=355164

[6] ’Nearly 6.5 crore electors removed from draft rolls of 12 states, UTs in SIR Phase 2’, Deccan Herald, at https://www.deccanherald.com/ amp/story/india%2Fnearly-65- crore-electors-removed-from- draft-rolls-of-12-states-uts- in-sir-phase-2-3854368

[7] Uttar Pradesh SIR draft roll (15.44 crore to 12.56 crore), The Statesman, at https://www.thestatesman.com/ tag/up-sir

[8] ’EC begins phased release of post-SIR rolls in West Bengal’, Siasat, February 28 2026, at https://www.siasat.com/ec- begins-phased-release-of-post- sir-rolls-in-west-bengal- 3390552/amp/

[9] Analysis of draft rolls across three phases (13.37 crore), CivilsDaily, at https://www.civilsdaily.com/? p=798931

[10] ’A third of names could be deleted in Delhi’s draft SIR roll of electors’, CivilsDaily, at https://www.civilsdaily.com/? p=797583

[11] ’SIR had no way to flag "infiltrators", Reporters Collective investigation finds’, National Herald, at https://www. nationalheraldindia.com/ national/eci-sir-no-mechanism- flag-infiltrators-reporters- collective

Also: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DerbFONoEJB/.

[12] ’Over 1.5 Crore Voters Deleted in Third Phase of SIR’, Catholic Connect, August 11 2026, at https://catholicconnect.in/ news/over-15-crore-voters- deleted-in-third-phase-of-sir

[13] ’Bihar SIR electoral roll revision drops 68.66 lakh voters, faces SC scrutiny and backlash, The Telegraph online,1 October 2025, at https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/bihar-sir-electoral-roll-revision-drops-68-66-lakh-voters-faces-sc-scrutiny-and-backlash-prnt/cid/2125685

[14] ’SIR And ERONET: How Electoral Roll Software Is Flagging Millions Of Voters’, Outlook, at https://www.outlookindia.com/ national/sir-and-eronet-how- electoral-roll-software-is- flagging-millions-of-voters

[15] ’EC’s expanded logical discrepancy list for third phase of SIR keeps voters on their toes’, CivilsDaily, at https://www.civilsdaily.com/ news/ecs-expanded-logical- discrepancy-list-for-third- phase-of-sir-keeps-voters-on- their-toes/

[16] ’WB SIR | Will Take 80 Days With Only Bengal Judges: Supreme Court Allows Deployment Of Judges From Odisha & Jharkhand’, LiveLaw, at https://www.livelaw.in/amp/ top-stories/west-bengal-sir- supreme-court-allows-judges- from-odisha-jharkhand-to-be- used-to-decide-claims-524324

[17] ’Supreme Court Modifies Its Order In West Bengal SIR Matter; Civil Judges With 3-Year Experience To Verify 80 Lakh Claims Of Logical Discrepancies’, Verdictum, February 24 2026, at https://www.verdictum.in/app- lite/court-updates/supreme- court/west-bengal-sir- modifies-order-to-expand- judicial-pool-for-west-bengal- voter-list-1608496

[18] ’Bengal SIR: ECI constitutes 19 Appellate Tribunals’, Siasat, at https://www.siasat.com/bengal- sir-eci-constitutes-19- appellate-tribunals-3438573/ amp/

[19] ’SIR in WB: 47 lakh objections resolved; SC sets Apr 7 deadline for completion’, The Hitavada, April 2 2026, at https://www.thehitavada.com/ Encyc/2026/4/2/sir-in-wb-47- lakh-objections-resolved-sc- sets-apr-7-deadline-for- completion-.html

[20] ’West Bengal SIR | Supreme Court Directs Uniform Procedure For Appellate Tribunals, Asks High Court To Constitute Committee Of Three Former Senior Judges’, Verdictum, April 6 2026, at https://www.verdictum.in/app- lite/court-updates/supreme- court/west-bengal-sir-supreme- court-directs-uniform- procedure-for-appellate- tribunals-asks-high-court-to- constitute-committee-of-three- former-senior-judges-1611479

[21] ’West Bengal SIR: SC order on voter appeals cleared by Appellate Tribunals’, SCC Online, April 17 2026, at https://www.scconline.com/ blog/post/2026/04/17/west- bengal-sir-sc-order-on-voter- appeals-cleared-by-appellate- tribunals/

[22] ’2 Election Commissioners Raise 14 Objections over Voter Rolls, Form 6 and IT Controls; ECI Says Decisions Were Unanimous’, Moneylife, September 23 2026, at https://www.moneylife.in/ article/2-election- commissioners-raise-14- objections-over-voter-rolls- form-6-and-it-controls-eci- says-decisions-were-unanimous/ 81733.html

[23] ’2 out of 3 Election Commissioners objected 14 times in 10 months on SIR’, The Wire, at https://thewire.in/government/ 2-out-of-3-election- commissioners-objected-14- times-in-10-months-on-sir

[24] ’Form 6 Controversy: ECI Faces Questions Over New Declaration For First-Time Voters’, Outlook, at https://www.outlookindia.com/ national/form-6-controversy- eci-faces-questions-over-new- declaration-for-first-time- voters

[25] ’ECI calls objections by two Commissioners part of normal decision-making process’, The Pioneer, at https://dailypioneer.com/news/ slug-lite/eci-calls- objections-by-two- commissioners-part-of-normal- decision-making-process-eci- calls-objections-by-two- commissioners-part-of-normal- decision-making-process?year= 2026

[26] ’EC asserts all SIR decisions unanimous; Oppn calls it damage control’, ThePrint (PTI), September 26 2026, at https://theprint.in/india/ec- asserts-all-sir-decisions- unanimous-oppn-calls-it- damage-control-india-bloc- meet-on-sep-30/3054508/

[27] ’EC in damage control mode, CEC’s resignation or prosecution needed: Cong’, Business Standard (PTI), September 26 2026, at https://www.business-standard. com/india-news/ec-in-damage- control-mode-cec-s- resignation-or-prosecution- needed-cong-126092600831_1. html

[28] ’EC withdraws SIR declaration from Form 6 in states where exercise is over’, Business Standard, September 30 2026, at https://www.business-standard. com/india-news/ec-withdraws- sir-declaration-from-form-6- in-states-where-exercise-is- over-126093000314_1.html

[29] ’EC exposed but no fresh ground to challenge SIR: lawyers on legal fallout of IE report’, Newslaundry, September 29 2026, at https://www.newslaundry.com/ amp/story/2026%2F09%2F29%2Fec- exposed-but-no-fresh-ground- to-challenge-sir-lawyers-on- legal-fallout-of-ie-report

[30] ’Who decided on nationwide SIR? EC’s RTI response raises questions’, The News Minute, at https://www.thenewsminute.com/ news/who-decided-on- nationwide-sir-ecs-rti- response-raises-questions

[31] ’SIR Row Escalates As EC Denies Internal Rift, BJP Calls Matter Settled, Congress Demands Answers’, Free Press Journal, at https://www.freepressjournal. in/india/sir-row-escalates-as- ec-denies-internal-rift-bjp- calls-matter-settled-congress- demands-answers

[32] ’SIR row: Supreme Court refuses interim suspension of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, seeks EC response’, Business Today, October 5 2026, at https://www.businesstoday.in/ india/story/sir-row-supreme- court-refuses-interim- suspension-of-cec-gyanesh- kumar-seeks-ec-response- 559551-2026-10-05

[33] ’Supreme Court Remarks Immunity For Election Commissioners Under 2023 Act Does Not Extend Even To Judges’, LawChakra, at https://lawchakra.in/supreme- court/election-commissioners- immunity/

[34] ’Supreme Court Has Not Approved Modified Form 6 For SIR, CJI Surya Kant Clarifies’, OneIndia, at https://www.oneindia.com/ india/supreme-court-has-not- approved-modified-form-6-for- sir-cji-surya-kant-clarifies- 8225171.html

[35] ’SC clarification on Form 6 gives Opposition fresh ammo against CEC Gyanesh Kumar’, The Federal, at https://thefederal.com/ category/politics/sc- clarification-form-6-gives- opposition-fresh-ammo-against- cec-gyanesh-kumar-258659

[36] ’They will have to explain: Supreme Court seeks ECI, CEC replies to plea alleging unilateral decision-making by Gyanesh Kumar’, Moneylife, at https://www.moneylife.in/ article/they-will-have-to- explain-supreme-court-seeks- eci-cec-replies-to-plea- alleging-unilateral- decisionmaking-by-gyanesh- kumar/81851.html

[37] ’Anti-CEC protest: INDIA bloc march halted; Rahul Gandhi files writ petition against EC in Supreme Court’, The Week, October 12 2026, at https://www.theweek.in/news/ india/2026/10/12/anti-cec- protest-india-bloc-march- halted-rahul-gandhi-files- writ-petition-against-ec-in- supreme-court.html

[38] ’Supreme Court Issues Notice To ECI On INDIA Bloc SIR Petition’, LiveLaw, October 15 2026, at https://www.livelaw.in/top- stories/supreme-court-notice- rahul-gandhi-india-bloc-plea- sir-eci-554801

[39] ’SC to hear plea against legal immunity for CEC, election commissioners’, Deccan Chronicle, at https://www.deccanchronicle. com/legalnews/sc-to-hear-plea- against-legal-immunity-for- cec-election-commissioners- 1995496

[40] ’Supreme Court to hear Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri petition’, NewsBytes, at https://www.newsbytesapp.com/ news/india/supreme-court-to- hear-anjali-bhardwaj-and- amrita-johri-petition/tldr

[41] ’Supreme Court adjourns pleas against ECI functioning, CEC Gyanesh Kumar’, The Pioneer, at https://dailypioneer.com/law- justice/supreme-court- adjourns-pleas-against-eci- functioning-cec-gyanesh-kumar

[42] ’SIR row: ECI says Form 6 unchanged; rejects Opposition claims in 15-point SC counter-affidavit’, The Week, October 26 2026, at https://www.theweek.in/news/ india/2026/10/26/sir-row-eci- says-form-6-unchanged-rejects- opposition-charges-in-15- point-sc-counter-affidavit. html

[43] ’No Change to Form 6; Members’ Approval Obtained Electronically in Urgent Matters: ECI To Supreme Court’, Bar & Bench, October 27 2026, at https://www.barandbench.com/ news/litigation/no-change-to- form-6-members-approval- obtained-electronically-in- urgent-matters-eci-to-supreme- court

[44] ’All SIR decisions unanimous, didn’t amend Form 6: ECI tells SC’, Siasat, at https://www.siasat.com/all- sir-decisions-unanimous-didnt- amend-form-6-eci-tells-sc- 3564998/

[45] ’Election Commission’s 250-page affidavit: what it says and what it doesn’t’, National Herald, at https://www. nationalheraldindia.com/ politics/election-commissions- 250-page-affidavit-what-it- says-and-what-it-doesnt

[46] ’Congress issues 6-point rebuttal to ECI’s SIR affidavit in Supreme Court’, ThePrint, October 27 2026, at https://theprint.in/politics/ congress-issues-6-point- rebuttal-to-ecis-sir- affidavit-in-supreme-court/ 3083213/

[47] ’ECI has accepted Form 6 tampering, now justifying it: TMC MP Dola Sen to Supreme Court’, Bar & Bench, at https://www.barandbench.com/ news/eci-has-accepted-form-6- tampering-now-justifying-it- tmc-mp-dola-sen-to-supreme- court

[48] ’All decisions unanimous: ECI to SC’, The Pioneer, at https://dailypioneer.com/ page1/all-decisions-unanimous- eci-to-sc

[49] ’SC adjourns pleas challenging ECI functioning to Nov 17, grants 10 days for rejoinder’, UNI, October 27 2026, at https://www.uniindia.com/ national/sc-adjourns-pleas- challenging-eci-functioning- to-nov-17-grants-10-days-for- rejoinder/226893

[50] ’SC vows close scrutiny of ECI over SIR pleas’, The Pioneer, at https://dailypioneer.com/ page1/sc-vows-close-scrutiny- of-eci-over-sir-pleas

[51] ’’SIR decisions unanimous’: EC to Supreme Court; but big question unanswered’, The Indian Express, at https://indianexpress.com/ article/india/election- commission-affidavit-sir- supreme-court-10938068/

Here is yet another damning exposure of 7 big gaps — the unanswered questions — by Yogendra Yadav done in a joint press conference in Delhi on 30 January 2026 at https://youtu.be/7ZXNzJ_yQyA.

[52] ’INDIA Bloc To Meet To Plan Fresh Protests Against CEC Gyanesh Kumar’, OneIndia, at https://www.oneindia.com/ india/india-bloc-to-meet- today-to-plan-fresh-protests- against-cec-gyanesh-kumar- 8241849.html

[53] ’Election Commission says Supreme Court upheld Form 6 changes, but did it?’, The Wire, at https://thewire.in/government/ election-commission-says- supreme-court-upheld-form-6- changes-but-did-it

[54] ’SIR to detect, delete, deport infiltrators: Amit Shah in Lok Sabha’, The Tribune, December 2025, at https://www.tribuneindia.com/ news/india/sir-to-detect- delete-deport-infiltrators- shah-in-ls

[55] ’BJP and EC Said SIR Was to Remove "Infiltrators". A Report Shows it Recorded Just 1,600 Foreigners’, The Wire, at https://m.thewire.in/article/ government/bjp-and-ec-said- sir-was-to-remove- infiltrators-a-report-shows- it-recorded-just-1600- foreigners

[56] ’SIR: Around 1,600 foreigners identified on voter rolls in six states, reports Hindustan Times’, Scroll, at https://scroll.in/latest/ 1096726/sir-around-1600- foreigners-identified-on- voter-rolls-in-six-states- reports-hindustan-times

[57] ’"10 crore went through SIR to find 1,600 foreigners": Jairam Ramesh accuses Shah of lying, seeks CEC’s removal’, ANI, October 29 2026, at https://aninews.in/news/ national/politics/822010- crore-went-through-sir-to- find-1600- 8216foreigners82178221-jairam- ramesh-accuses-shah-of-lying- seeks-cec8217s- removal20261029101443/

[58] ’Bengal SIR Observer Says He Knew Nothing About CEO Office’s 16 Lakh Appeals Against Cleared Voters’, 30 October 2026, at https://m.thewire.in/article/government/bengal-sir-observer-subrata-gupta-election-commission-16-lakh-appeals-against-cleared-voters.

[59] ’ECI is doing someone else’s bidding and Anjali Bhardwaj has proof: Interview’, 14 October 2026, at https://youtu.be/1fP0ef3SDoI.

[60] ’’Elections Should Be Held Under Finally Published Roll...’: Former CEC OP Rawat On Bengal SIR Row’, India Today, 9 October 2026, at https://youtu.be/MW9wXWsRXno.

[61] ’Poll in Bengal or War on Bengal!?’, Sukla Sen, 10 April 2026, at https://groups.google.com/g/greenyouth/c/bZhnYGwCdYc/m/RRSyVvw_FAAJ.

[62] ’आइए - दिल्ली के रामलीला मैदान’, Indian National Congress, 1 November 2026, at https://youtube.com/shorts/xgah-uPgzM4.

[62A] ’Delhi Live: Rahul Gandhi I ’Chalo Delhi’, 1 November 2026, at G’https://www.youtube.com/live/G1jkrQyMnFg.

[63] ’Rakesh Tikait ने किया 1 नवम्बर को Rahul Gandhi की रैली के समर्थन का ऐलान, देखें धाकड इंटरव्यू’, Amrish Baliyan, 30 October 2026, at https://youtu.be/iyaNrzHDGU4.

[64] ’Abhijeet Dipke meets Mamata Banerjee, says CJP won’t join INDIA bloc rally’, 1 November 2026, at https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/india/story/cjp-abhijeet-dipke-meets-mamata-banerjee-delhi-backs-india-bloc-vote-chori-rally-but-refuses-to-join-protest-at-ramlila-maidan-3029609-2026-10-31.