Three UN Special Rapporteurs have raised serious concerns about India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, warning about issues of transparency, possible exclusion of eligible voters, and the risk of disproportionate impact on minority communities, including Muslims.
These are not minor procedural questions. They go to the heart of democracy: whether a citizen who is legally entitled to vote is given a genuine opportunity to exercise that right.
The most fundamental principle of any electoral system is simple — no eligible voter should lose the right to participate without due process, clear reasons, and a meaningful opportunity to challenge the decision. If a person is removed from the electoral roll and an appeal later establishes that the person was eligible, the damage has already been done. A right delayed until after an election can effectively become a right denied.
Questions have also been raised about the handling of appeals in West Bengal. Critics have argued that where voters had challenged exclusions before tribunals or authorities, elections proceeded before those disputes were fully resolved. If true, this raises a serious question: what value does an appeal have if the election takes place before the appeal is decided?
A democratic system cannot operate on the principle that mistakes can be corrected later. The right to vote is exercised at a particular moment — on election day. A remedy after that moment may not restore what was lost.
One striking example cited in public debate involved a former judge of the Calcutta High Court, whose family’s names reportedly went missing from electoral rolls. After he raised the issue publicly, the matter received attention and the names were restored. He questioned the lack of clarity around the appeals process, including how and where to appeal, why names were removed, and what transparent mechanism existed for ordinary citizens to seek correction.
But the uncomfortable question is this: what happens to citizens who do not have public recognition, legal expertise, or access to the media? If a former judge struggles to understand the process, how can an ordinary voter with limited resources be expected to navigate it?
The UN experts’ concerns focused on precisely these issues: transparency of the process, safeguards against wrongful exclusion, adequate opportunity to challenge deletions, and protection against discriminatory impact.
The Indian government’s response has now become another matter of controversy. The UN communication was made public after the response period of 60 days under the Special Procedures process lapsed. No government response appears to have been published alongside the communication. The Election Commission later rejected the concerns and defended the SIR process, but reports attributed these comments to unnamed EC sources rather than pointing to a clearly identified public response document.
That raises a larger question about accountability. If allegations are serious enough to attract international scrutiny, should the response not come openly, formally, and transparently? Should citizens not be able to see the government’s detailed answers rather than rely on reports of anonymous official briefings?
A democracy is not strengthened by avoiding uncomfortable questions. It is strengthened by answering them.
India’s institutions have the responsibility to demonstrate that elections are not merely conducted, but conducted fairly, transparently, and with full protection of every eligible voter’s rights. International criticism can be rejected — governments have that right — but rejecting criticism without fully addressing the substance of the concerns risks creating more questions than answers.
The issue is not about pleasing the UN or any outside body. The issue is about public confidence. Elections depend not only on votes being counted, but on citizens believing that they were allowed to participate.
A democracy must not ask its citizens to prove their right to vote through a process that is unclear, inaccessible, or impossible to navigate. It must prove to them that their right to vote is protected.
Barrister Mohammed A Siddiqui