Special Intensive Revision (SIR) or Intensive Subversion of Rolls (ISR)? This is the most hotly debated topic this election season – not just in the run up but perhaps even more so in its aftermath.

SIR is Unprecedented: Not Revision, but Subversion

From the very outset, in Bihar itself, SIR became mired in controversy because the announcement on June 24, 2025, was not preceded by consultation with political parties as has been the established convention. Intensive revisions were invariably taken up over a long duration of time. The general principle established since the very first ECI was - universality of voting rights for every citizen and the responsibility of drawing up the electoral roll was entirely and exclusively on the ECI to ensure compliance with Article 326. The laid down procedure for deleting names from draft roll had to be conducted on the basis of objections which had to be verified in consultation with the Home Ministry.

SIR prescribed a procedure of house-to-house enumeration accompanied by submission of a written application along with any one of 11 documents whose coverage is extremely low. A failure to do so would mean disenfranchisement. This in effect implied non-inclusion in the roll as this is a de novo exercise where the undocumented citizen was to be deemed as non-citizen and invite automatic deletion. This was completely violative of Article 326 and universal franchise. The responsibility of identifying non-citizens was entrusted with the Home Ministry. But, after having failed to take the CAA and the NRC process forward, the loud-mouthed Home Minister had prescribed a sinister playbook. He prescribed, ‘detect, delete and deport’, using the SIR exercise to criminalise the undocumented citizens, and throw them out.

The opposition parties collectively met the CEC only to be summarily dismissed without any assurance of correcting the situation which threatened mass disenfranchisement. However, while the exercise in Bihar raised many questions, in the subsequent SIR exercise in the remaining 12 states, the mapping process could not be as ruthless as in Bihar. This is despite the fact that the ECI was non-transparent and would not cite the original 2002-03 order to justify the initiation of the SIR process.

Chronology and Methodology of the SIR in West Bengal

Obviously, the exercise of SIR in West Bengal became far more contested right from the outset. The mapping phase revealed that only 58 lakh routine deletions under the ASDD (Absent, Shifted, Deleted, Displaced) categories during the draft revision were established. Alongside, another 27 lakh voters were rendered ineligible following a judicial review of Under Adjudication (UA cases). It is these 27 lakhs which came under focus.

By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9 per cent of the electorate before the process began, had been removed. Ahead of the polling, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before the tribunals. Of these, seven lakh were against names being included in the rolls and 27 lakh were filed by persons who were excluded. Appellate Tribunals set up as part of the SIR process had allowed 1,607 names to be added back to the electoral rolls.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi of the Supreme Court on Monday raised certain concerns about the ongoing SIR process in the State of West Bengal, emphasising the need to have a “robust appellate mechanism” to consider the appeals filed by persons who were deleted from the electoral rolls. Justice Bagchi noted that when it came to West Bengal, the ECI deviated from the process adopted in other states and introduced a new category of ‘Logical Discrepancy’. Justice Bagchi also stated that the ECI deviated from the stand taken in the Bihar SIR matter that persons who were mapped in the 2002 electoral roll need not upload documents.

“Unfair denial of participation as a candidate is a ground to cancel an election. But right to vote will per se, until and unless, it’s an enormous number of electors, S.100 of the RP Act does not fall as one of the grounds for cancelling an election. If 10% of electorate does not vote and the winning margin is more than 10%...what will happen? Suppose margin is 2% and 15% of electorate who are mapped could not vote, then maybe, we are not expressing any opinion, but we would definitely have to apply our minds. Please keep this in mind that the concern of a vigilant voter whose name correctly or incorrectly is not in the list is not in our minds,” Justice Bagchi told the ECI.

However, notwithstanding the concern, Justice Bagchi had no clue about the magnitude of the task the Supreme Court was bestowing on the Judicial Tribunals for the 19 districts of the state. The mechanism was set up through the Kolkata High Court but hardly took off even before the first phase of the elections. This is not to mention the trauma of the people who were in this dubious UA category completely because of the ill-conceived design and timeline of the SIR, initiated by the ECI. Justice Bagchi’s hope that even if 70 per cent of the task is accomplished, that would be excellent was clearly misplaced. With all the 19 district tribunals being housed in Kolkata, the poor voters who were prima facie citizens, having been mapped, had to travel all the way from remote districts foregoing their daily wages.

The biggest pointer to the monumental failure of this tribunal process has been laid bare by Justice T. S. Sivagnanam, the former Chief Justice of Kolkata High Court and a member of the SIR Appellate Tribunal, in his statement of resignation. He pointed out that after working conscientiously day and night, between April 5 and 27; he could dispose of 1,777 appeals in total, while validating 1,717 of them. He added that it would take four years to complete the 33 lakh appeals that had been filed before the tribunals. Incidentally, a Congress leader who got an out of turn hearing with direct intervention by the Supreme Court, got his name restored back in the electoral rolls, contested the election and has been elected as an MLA.

Therefore, with the available data, it is now clear that this was no electoral rolls’ revision, not to speak of an intensive exercise, but a ‘surgical strike’ on the rolls. The conclusion is obvious; it was a subversion meant to disenfranchise voters. Those who were at the receiving end of the social and economic hierarchy had borne the brunt.

Denominational and the Social Dimensions

The SIR or ISR, as one may choose to term it, has extremely dangerous repercussions in terms of the social fabric of the state. While the 58 lakh deletions under ASDD approximate the ground reality, the UA category is a completely different cup of tea. Matching the pattern of deletion with the denominational composition of district and locality wise density of population, the maximum deletions were in Muslim population dense areas along with localities inhabited by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Therefore, there is a lasting impression that this was by design, if not with malafide.

The fact that the SIR exercise, in the manner in which it was held, was opposed by all the political parties except the BJP made it prone to be influenced by Hindutva’s constant contention that West Bengal was infested with ‘ghuspettiyas’ and ‘infiltrators’. But there is no iota of truth to this in the reality of West Bengal today. There is no documentary evidence with the Modi government even after 12 years of its existence. Naturally, the mapping exercise could also not establish this and hence the introduction of the untested software and the manufacturing of the notion of ‘logical discrepancy’, pushing such huge numbers to the UA category. The fact that BJP leaders were almost celebrating this outcome, combined with their vicious threats to those under UA, that they will soon be kicked out, was a chilling reminder of the potency of Hindutva’s original ideological underpinnings.

Who else but Swami Vivekananda said, “Why amongst the poor of India so many are Mohammedans? It is nonsense to say they were converted by the sword. It was to gain their liberty from the . . . zemindars and from the . . . priest, and as a consequence you find in Bengal there are more Mohammedans than Hindus amongst the cultivators, because there were so many zemindars there. Who thinks of raising these sunken downtrodden millions? A few thousand graduates do not make a nation, a few rich men do not make a nation. True, our opportunities are less, but still there is enough to feed and clothe and make 300 million more comfortable, nay, luxurious. Ninety per cent of our people are without education — who thinks of that? — these Babus, the so-called patriots?” [Letter to Diwanji (Shri Haridas Viharidas Desai), as quoted in the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda] Therefore, far from legitimising their moronic theory of ‘ghuspettiyas’, the RSS-BJP leaders would do well to talk of the revival of Bengal after undertaking a more in-depth study of Swamiji.

Re-enacting Assam and the D-Voter Exercise

In this atmosphere of electoral celebration, it is becoming increasingly clear that the SIR process was intended to impact West Bengal beyond the electoral outcome. It was to re-fashion the identity-based foundations of the state which was in the forefront of struggles against British colonialism. Bengal was witness to the richest legacy of social, cultural and religious reforms. Therefore, the fake revival of Bengal and placing of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee as its doyen, who was more of an enforcer of Partition, is a non-starter. It is one thing to piggy-back on the intense anti-incumbency of the previous TMC-led government, but quite another to take forward this progressive state. The new conversation of establishing inclusive governance cannot cut much ice in the background of embracing the SIR, which was an out and out divisive exercise.

Rather, the BJP is trying to play out the Assam playbook where certain attempts were made to delegitimise a section of the undocumented voters without a proper appraisal and scrutiny of their actual citizenship. By invoking an emotive sense of insecurity, a D-voter category was attributed for certain sections of the people. This was sought to be linked with the NRC process and the so-called detention centres’ where the gross collapse of that led to a situation were huge financial expenditure has rendered these make-believe facilities into empty and haunted spaces.

The design is clear. Even before the fate of the UA category is dealt with by the judiciary, the state government is hinting at disabling the rights of beneficiaries of social welfare schemes. Women whose names were deleted during the SIR in West Bengal will not receive benefits of the state government’s Annapurna Bhandar scheme. But those of us who believe in an inclusive, secular democracy will take them on by uniting the broadest possible sections of the people, based on the livelihood crisis, irrespective of their caste, creed and denomination to defeat the playbook of division, disruption and subversion. The issue of 27 lakh undecided people will be a centerpiece of this attempt.