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The Election Commission’s latest instructions mark a U-turn in its approach to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). After an exercise in which about 13 crore names disappeared from draft electoral rolls, the Commission has directed its machinery to identify and re-enrol arbitrarily deleted eligible voters. The change is welcome — even after causing countrywide chaos. But its significance should not be concealed behind administrative language.
In instructions issued on September 29 and reinforced at its October 1 meeting with Chief Electoral Officers, the Commission has ordered a special enrolment drive in 20 states and Union territories where SIR has been completed. Officials must compare pre-SIR and post-SIR rolls, identify missing voters, visit their homes and facilitate their enrolment. Political parties may assist.
These instructions address two distinct problems. Both deserve attention.
First, the young voters. For years, the ECI took pride in encouraging every Indian youngster who turned 18 on every January 1 to register immediately. The Union cabinet’s 2011 decision to make January 25 National Voters’ Day reflects this approach. In 2022, another important reform was introduced. Instead of a single qualifying date of January 1, it provided four: January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1. Seventeen-year-olds could even apply in advance.
The message was unmistakable: Nobody should unnecessarily wait to exercise the franchise after becoming eligible.
What happened to that commitment in 2024?
The Commission must explain how many young people becoming eligible from 2024 onwards remained unenrolled and why. It cannot now quietly announce a special drive for young voters and expect everyone to forget these questions.
Generation Z is entitled to an explanation. The Commission should publish quarterly figures for applications, enrolments, rejections and pendency, identify those affected by its additional requirements, and account for any eligible young citizens who consequently missed elections. Those responsible for unlawful or unjustified administrative obstructions must be held accountable. Announcing a corrective drive is no substitute for explaining why it became necessary.
Two, the restoration of deleted voters. Here, the contradiction is even more extraordinary. The Commission has instructed officials to identify people who appeared on the pre-SIR rolls but disappeared from the revised rolls and bring them back on the rolls straightaway. A dramatic surrender indeed. Yet it proposes to bring them back through Form 6.
The heading of Form 6 explicitly states: “Application Form for New Voters”. Its declaration requires the applicant to state: “I am applying for inclusion in Electoral Roll for the first time.” How can somebody who has been voting for 20 or 30 years honestly sign such a declaration?
There is an additional irony. The same form warns that making a false declaration is punishable under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, with imprisonment extending to one year, a fine, or both. An elector whose name has disappeared is effectively being told to declare that he is applying for registration for the first time.
We need to examine the experience of those previously registered voters who reportedly protested against this procedure but were nevertheless forced to submit Form 6. How many complied because they were told that they had no other way of recovering their vote?
Why should citizens be placed in a position where recovering their electoral registration requires them to sign a false — and hence illegal — declaration?
There is a potentially serious criminal dimension for election officials, too. Under Sections 45 and 49 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, intentional instigation or assistance in committing an offence can constitute abetment. An abettor can face the same punishment as prescribed for the offence.
But the larger question is institutional. The Commission is now instructing officials to identify previously registered voters and bring them back through a statutory form designed for first-time applicants. How can it reconcile these two instructions?
The solution is straightforward. Introduce an appropriate restoration procedure. Ask for the previous EPIC number and electoral-roll particulars. Verify whether the citizen remains eligible, has shifted residence, is registered elsewhere or has become disqualified. Where necessary, amend the statutory forms through the prescribed legal procedure. I would suggest introducing a new form, say 6X.
We must save citizens from expensive and cumbersome litigation when the electoral administration possesses the records needed to examine their claims. A first-time voter needs registration, using Form 6. A wrongly deleted voter needs restoration, using Form 6X, which can be created in a few hours by the Law Ministry amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
The Commission has finally recognised the practical necessity of identifying both categories. It must now provide legally appropriate procedures for dealing with them, publish the results and explain the administrative failures that made this corrective exercise necessary.
Quraishi is former chief election commissioner of India and the author of An Undocumented Wonder: The Making of the Great Indian Election
