New Delhi: When the Election Commission of India (ECI)  announced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls – a term that does not exist in the rule books – on June 24, 2025, it said that the exercise has been necessitated due to various reasons including the “inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants”. Yet, one year after the SIR started, the ECI is yet to provide a figure for the number of alleged “foreign illegal immigrants” that have been found on electoral rolls in the exercise that has already been conducted in 13 states and Union territories.

The exercise in the last year however has thrown up a few figures – over 5 crore voters have been deleted in these 13 states and Union territories while about 27 lakh voters just in West Bengal were unable to vote in the April assembly elections and are still waiting for their appeals to be decided by judicial tribunals.

The exercise has also resulted in an unprecedented denial of rights, with those deleted in the SIR now being refused welfare benefits by the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief ministers in West Bengal and Bihar. This, despite the Supreme Court in its order upholding the SIR last month, maintaining that the ECI can only verify citizenship for the purpose of preparation of electoral rolls, and determination of citizenship remains the centre government’s domain.

Despite questions over its timing when it was first announced in Bihar, just ahead of assembly elections in the state, over the last year, the ECI also applied different approaches to the SIR in different states – one in Bihar, another in West Bengal, none in Assam  – providing little justification for doing so.

The Wire assesses the impact of the SIR as it completes one year:

No number of ‘foreigners’ on........

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