It’s worse than Bihar. With the ECI beginning to release the draft voters’ list for the second phase of the SIR, it is clear that voter exclusion this time will be higher and more damaging. If we combine the official data for five states with news reports from the rest, as many as 11 crore names on the existing voters’ list face potential erasure in the 12 states and UTs covered under the present round of the SIR. The final figure in this round will be much smaller. But by the time the SIR is completed in the entire country, we could be looking at nearly 10 crore deletions.

If this looming disaster has not yet made headlines, it is because the information is scattered, staggered and shrouded. After the Bihar election, the SIR disappeared from national headlines and was pushed to regional media or the local pages. The repeated and state-wise extensions of the deadline by the ECI ensured that the final figures would arrive in four instalments, thus masking the big picture.

The ECI has done its best to create a smokescreen by starting a new practice of releasing fantastic but meaningless figures about the percentage of data “digitised”. This obfuscates the two sets of data we need: The number of those who did not fill the enumeration form and will face exclusion from the draft list, and the number of those whose names could not be connected to the older voters’ list and will face potential deletion.

The release of draft electoral rolls for five states and UTs (Rajasthan, West Bengal, Goa, Lakshadweep and Puducherry) has begun the unveiling of the real picture. And for other states, we have “source-based” information in........

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