Opinion | SIR: Facts Vs Falsehoods

Street-style thuggery can never be and will never be an alternative to the popular mandate of the electorate

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The Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls is a house-to-house verification ordered by the Election Commission of India (ECI). In Bihar, it began on June 24, 2025, the first stage of a wider national exercise.

The ECI’s stated test is straightforward — every eligible citizen should be on the roll and no ineligible person should remain on it.

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The nefarious political campaign against the SIR by India’s morally decrepit Opposition has treated the same exercise as proof of a plot to steal votes and discredit the Modi government.

The truth is, intensive revision is not a new invention. Article 324 gives the Election Commission the power to superintend elections and the preparation of electoral rolls. Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, allows the ECI to order a special revision of a roll. Rule 25 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, contemplates intensive, summary, or mixed revision. The ECI’s June 2025 order listed earlier intensive revisions across the country, from the 1950s through 2004.

Bihar’s previous intensive revision was in 2003. The voter identity card system itself grew out of intensive revisions in the early 1990s, under successive governments that were not led by the BJP. A gap of twenty-two years in a high-migration State is a solid reason to clean the roll and certainly not any evidence that the cleaning is unprecedented or unlawful.

The Bihar numbers, for example, are public. On June 24, 2025, the roll contained 7.89 crore electors. Booth-level officers, roughly one lakh of them, distributed pre-filled enumeration forms and made repeated house visits. By the draft roll of August 1, 65 lakh names were absent. The Commission’s breakdown of that draft-stage removal was approximately 22 lakh deceased, 36 lakh permanently migrated or not traceable at the recorded address, and 7 lakh already enrolled elsewhere. The claims and objections period then added 21.53 lakh electors through Form 6 and removed a further 3.66 lakh. The final roll published on September 30, 2025 stood at about 7.42 crore. Net reduction was roughly 47 lakh, or barely 6%. Electors still left out could apply for inclusion up to ten days before the last date for filing nominations, with the addition going into a supplementary list. Appeals under Section 24 lay to the District Magistrate and then to the Chief Electoral Officer.

Political parties were always seized of the modalities of the SIR process right from day one, and to therefore make spurious allegations after facing an electoral loss is simply the handiwork of sore losers. Indeed, the Opposition has been a bad case of “sour grapes".

1.In Bihar, the Special Intensive Revision began on June 24, 2025, with the roll containing 7.89 crore electors.

In Bihar, the Special Intensive Revision began on June 24, 2025, with the roll containing 7.89 crore electors.

2.The draft roll of August 1 recorded 65 lakh absent names, broken down into roughly 22 lakh deceased, 36 lakh permanently migrated or untraceable, and 7........

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