The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was supposed to be a routine exercise to update electoral rolls. However, it soon became a national controversy amid allegations of mass voter deletions, opaque procedures and disfranchising minority communities. Following the SIR exercise, Uttar Pradesh deleted around 2.04 to 2.89 crore voters (13%), West Bengal removed approximately 90 lakhs (11-12%), Bihar cleared about 65 lakhs (8.3%), and Madhya Pradesh expunged 34.25 lakh (6%) voters. Overall, over 5 crore voters were deleted in 13 states and Union territories, with over 27 lakh appeals pending before judicial tribunals in West Bengal alone. Currently, SIR is in its third phase in 16 states and three Union Territories.
SIR became so contentious that even the United Nations had to take cognizance. It promptly despatched three UN Special Rapporteurs to examine the issue and prepare a report on their findings. The three rapporteurs are: Nicolas Levrat, UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues; Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression; and NazilaGhanea, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. The arrival of UN rapporteurs for checking the SIR process, by itself should be a wake-up call for realising the gravity of the situation. India prides itself as being the ‘mother of democracy’; so, any adverse comments by international monitors could turn out to be hugely embarrassing.
Virtual Show Cause Notice
The three UN Special Rapporteurs for SIR wrote a letter dated May 1, 2026 to the Government of India, saying, “In the context of the SIR process, statements were reportedly made by politicians and senior public figures of the government, which appear to reflect and reinforce a pattern of discriminatory rhetoric directed at Muslim, Bengali, and other minority communities. Senior government officials, including the Union home minister [Amit Shah], have reportedly publicly framed the deletion of voter names as targeting “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants” – rhetoric that conflates legitimate Indian Muslim citizens with foreign nationals. It is reported that there has been repeated invocation of this framing by the highest levels of the executive, including the characterisation of the SIR as a mechanism to ‘purify’ electoral rolls of infiltrators. We are particularly concerned by the way in which the SIR process has been conducted, notably the reported removal of millions of voters’ names from electoral rolls, potentially affecting a great number of Muslims and persons of Bengali descent, as well as other minorities, who may be wrongfully excluded from the updated electoral rolls because of their historical and continuing treatment as foreigners and illegal immigrants, notably in West Bengal.”
Relief by Apex Court
In its statement dated June 24,2025, the Election Commission of India (ECI) stated (through PIB), “Various reasons such as rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants have necessitated the conduct of an intensive revision so as to ensure integrity and preparation of error-free electoral rolls.”
The ruling party is using the SIR exercise to bolster its narrative that the population of the Muslim community and Muslim voters is increasing because of the penetration of a large number of illegal foreign nationals from Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries and that the SIR will now help “detect, delete, and deport” these illegal Muslim foreigners. However, the ECI is yet to provide any data as to how many foreign illegal immigrants, it was able to detect through the SIR. Thus, the ECI and the ruling party managed to turn the simple task of routine electoral roll revision of its citizens into an exercise of ‘citizenship verification’.
There was tremendous relief when the Supreme Court of India on 17 July, reaffirmed that exclusion or deletion of a person’s name from the electoral rolls under the SIR exercise does not amount to loss of Indian citizenship and cannot be used to deny access to government welfare schemes. Hearing a batch of petitions, a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana expressed concern over reports that individuals whose names had been removed from electoral rolls were being treated as non-citizens and denied welfare benefits in some states, including West Bengal. The court made the observation while issuing notices to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the West Bengal government on a plea seeking directions that persons removed from the electoral rolls after rejection of their appeals by the SIR exercise should continue to receive benefits under government welfare schemes.
Recalling its May 27 judgment upholding the constitutional validity of the SIR exercise, the Bench clarified that the Election Commission’s role is limited to preparing and revising electoral rolls and does not extend to deciding the questions of citizenship. “There is no confusion in law. The ECI has control and superintendence over the electoral roll. We explicitly clarified that exclusion or deletion from the voter list under the SIR does not equate to a loss of citizenship,” the Bench observed.
Savarkar and SIR
Political scientist, Dr NirajaJayal (former Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance atJNU), who teaches at King’s College London and the London School of Economics, in the United Kingdom, in an address delivered at the Constitutional Conduct Group conclave on ‘One Nation-One Election, Federalism and Citizenship’ at the Constitution Club of India, New Delhi, on 4 July 2026, said, “So, who is, who can be, and who ought to be an Indian citizen? The RSS’s answer to this question is fundamentally anchored in V.D. Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva (1923), particularly his distinction between Punyabhumi (holy land) and Pitribhumi (fatherland). The RSS views the work of Partition as incomplete and regards Indian Muslims as a blot on the body politic who, at best, may be treated as second-class citizens. This vision construes citizenship as faith-based, in consonance with the idea of India as a Hindu majoritarian nation, or Hindu Rashtra, in which Hindus are regarded as the natural citizens, while Muslims are seen as belonging to Pakistan, Bangladesh, or elsewhere.”
The SIR exercise has inadvertently ignited political consciousness of the Muslim community of India. They know the importance of SIR and being bona fide voters regardless of the controversies surrounding the process of electoral roll revision. Muslim religious organisations, mosques and NGOs have started a vibrant movement for mapping and filling the enumeration forms for SIR and have received tremendous response by the community. After all Newton’s third law of motion says, “For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”