By Abdul Bari Masoud
It seems the era of ‘booth-capturing’ has ended; the era of mass disenfranchisement is here, as the Supreme Court has upheld the Election Commission of India’s authority to conduct the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. After the judgment, the Opposition and civil society say their worst fears have come true: the BJP now has the power to determine who can vote and who can’t.
While the apex court described the exercise as a legitimate effort to safeguard electoral integrity and ensure ‘free and fair elections’, opposition parties, civil society groups, constitutional experts and former election officials have slammed the verdict as a grave setback to democratic rights and the principle of universal adult franchise.
The ruling, delivered on May 27 by a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, effectively clears the way for the ECI to continue its nationwide voter-roll verification drive, an exercise that has already affected millions of voters and triggered intense political controversy across several states.
At the heart of the debate lies a fundamental question: Is the SIR a necessary clean-up of electoral rolls, or a process that risks excluding legitimate voters from India’s democratic framework?
Court Endorses ECI’s Powers
The Court held that the ECI possesses both constitutional and statutory authority to undertake a Special Intensive Revision under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
It ruled that the SIR bears a ‘direct nexus’ to the constitutional objective of ensuring free and fair elections. Electoral integrity, it observed, begins not on polling day but with accurate, credible and up-to-date voter rolls.
Accepting the Election Commission’s rationale, the court noted that more than four decades had elapsed since the last intensive revision and that rapid urbanisation, migration and demographic shifts may have introduced duplications and inaccuracies into electoral records.
At the same time, the court drew a clear distinction on the issue of citizenship. It held that the ECI has no authority to determine citizenship and directed the ECI to forward, within four weeks, the names of individuals removed from electoral rolls on grounds of doubtful citizenship to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, primarily the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The verdict came in response to a batch of petitions filed after the ECI launched the first phase of SIR in Bihar in June 2025. The petitioners included the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), political activist Yogendra Yadav, and opposition parliamentarians Mahua Moitra, Manoj Jha, K.C. Venugopal and Supriya Sule.
While the petitioners did not challenge the Election Commission’s authority to revise voter rolls, they argued that the manner in which the exercise was conducted threatened voter rights and democratic participation.
Their concerns deepened following the first two phases of the SIR in Bihar and West Bengal, where the exercise became mired in controversy which paved the way for the BJP to capture both the states.
In West Bengal alone, more than 27 lakh voters found themselves trapped in a bureaucratic maze, awaiting adjudication by judicial tribunals shortly before polling. Many failed to secure relief before election day, effectively losing their right to vote.
Yogendra Yadav’s Sharp Rebuttal
Among the strongest critics of the verdict was Yogendra Yadav, one of the petitioners challenging the SIR exercise. In a scathing response, Yadav argued that the judgment fundamentally alters the relationship between citizens and the democratic process. “SIR has introduced a model of curation of voter lists. Earlier, voters elected governments. Now governments can decide who the voters will be,” he said.
Suggesting that the outcome had become apparent long before the judgment was delivered, Yadav remarked: “The case was decided long ago.”
According to him, the Supreme Court gradually moved away from examining the constitutional validity of the exercise and instead focused on procedural grievances. “The court effectively converted itself into a grievance-redressal forum rather than examining constitutional principles,” he argued.
Drawing a parallel with the Emergency-era ADM Jabalpur judgment, Yadav described the ruling as one of the defining constitutional setbacks of contemporary India. “ADR vs Union of India (2026) is to our times what ADM Jabalpur was to the previous assault on democracy,” he said.
Yadav further alleged that the judgment had effectively sanctioned mass disenfranchisement. “The verdict has authorised the disenfranchisement of millions of citizens,” he claimed, warning that the number of affected voters could rise dramatically as the exercise expands nationwide.
In perhaps his most politically charged remark, he said: “The real news is not that SIR has been declared constitutional. The real news is that now the BJP will decide who can vote and who cannot.”
While the Congress adopted a more nuanced but equally critical position. Senior advocate and Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi acknowledged that “no one can now say that SIR is constitutionally invalid.” However, he insisted that the core concerns raised by the opposition remain unresolved.
“SIR was always a matter of substance, not merely of form. What was challenged was not the Election Commission’s power to conduct the exercise, but the mode, manner, timing and implementation of that power,” he argued.
Singhvi pointed to what he described as several contradictions in both the process and the judgment. The foremost, he said, was the court’s acknowledgment that the Election Commission cannot determine citizenship. “If citizenship can only be determined by another authority, how can voters be excluded first and investigated later?” he asked.
He also noted that several safeguards, including publication of reasons for deletion, wider acceptance of documents and assistance mechanisms for affected voters, were introduced only after judicial intervention. “If these safeguards were essential, why were they absent in the first place?” he questioned.
Another major concern, according to Singhvi, was timing. He argued that a verification exercise involving crores of voters was compressed into a narrow timeframe just months before elections. “Why could the Election Commission not begin the process a year earlier?” he asked.
He further criticised what he called a ‘cart before the horse’ approach, under which voters were removed from electoral rolls before being given a meaningful opportunity to challenge their exclusion. “In many cases, elections were over before appeals could be decided,” Singhvi noted.
According to him, these concerns remain very much alive despite the court’s endorsement of the broader exercise.
‘A Travesty of Justice’
The CPI(M) launched one of the fiercest attacks on the verdict, describing it as a ‘body blow to democracy’ and a ‘travesty of justice’. The party said the judgment had granted constitutional legitimacy to a process that resulted in largescale exclusion and intimidation of vulnerable citizens. “The apex court has seriously compromised its role as the guardian of democratic rights and constitutional guarantees.”
The party argued that the SIR disproportionately affects poor citizens, migrant workers, minorities, Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalised communities who often lack easy access to documentary proof.
Particular criticism was directed at the use of the controversial ‘logical discrepancy’ criterion in West Bengal, where software algorithms reportedly flagged more than one crore voters as doubtful. Because of this nearly 27 lakh voters ultimately lost their voting rights despite possessing valid documents.
The party also warned that forwarding the names of deleted voters to citizenship authorities could amount to a backdoor introduction of a National Register of Citizens (NRC), reviving anxieties that fuelled nationwide protests in recent years.
Former CEC and Civil Society Raise Alarm
Criticism of the verdict has extended beyond political parties. Former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi described the SIR exercise as ‘unconstitutional’ and alleged that it amounted to a ‘conspiracy against the people.’ His intervention has added to concerns that public confidence in India’s electoral institutions is facing an unprecedented test.
More than 300 academics, activists, retired civil servants and public intellectuals have also voiced alarm. In a joint statement, they accused the Election Commission of abandoning its constitutional neutrality and functioning in a partisan manner. The signatories alleged that nearly six crore legitimate voters across various states and Union Territories had been disenfranchised through the SIR process.
Describing the exercise as ‘exclusionary, undemocratic, non-transparent and unscientific’, they called for an immediate review, restoration of excluded voters and greater transparency in electoral roll management.
The third phase of the SIR, launched on May 14, covers 16 states and three Union Territories, including Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha, Punjab and Uttarakhand. Nearly 367 million voters and close to four lakh field-level officials are involved in what is one of the largest electoral verification exercises ever undertaken in the country. Supporters argue that such an exercise is essential to eliminate duplicate entries, remove deceased voters and improve the accuracy of electoral rolls. Critics, however, contend that the sheer scale of the operation increases the risk of wrongful exclusions and administrative errors, particularly among the poor and socially vulnerable.
For the ECI and the government, the SIR is a necessary reform aimed at strengthening electoral integrity. For the opposition, civil society groups and many constitutional critics, it raises troubling questions about exclusion, accountability and the future of universal adult franchise.
The Supreme Court may have settled the legal question for now. Yet the political, constitutional and moral questions remain unresolved. However, for the opposition and many civil society groups, a more sophisticated threat to electoral democracy has emerged – one that is not about capturing polling booths on election day, but about determining who gets the right to vote long before ballots are cast. According to them, the power to shape the electorate itself may now rest in the hands of the BJP, determining who gets to vote and who doesn’t.
