What began as a mad overnight decree has now been finetuned into a ‘weapon of mass deletion’ and brings to mind other WMDs deployed in the past with devastating effect. The nationwide ‘special intensive revision’ (SIR) of voter rolls, a blunt instrument that risked disenfranchising citizens in its earlier avatar, has evolved into something far more insidious — a tool that can selectively exclude voters.

This new version may seem smoother for election officials and slightly easier for citizens, but its core objective is voter suppression. With its obsessive focus on verification of citizenship, the SIR continues to carry the threat of mass deletions from electoral rolls.

After the Election Commission’s press conference, one thing became clear — the Commission’s intent is not to cleanse the rolls but to purge them. The talk of ‘purifying’ the voter list is a smokescreen; the real purpose is to arbitrarily strike out targeted names. The process won’t be based on transparent criteria but rather on the discretion (i.e. bias) of officials. In the name of verifying citizenship, we are witnessing the undeclared creation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The panic and haste seen in Bihar are absent in SIR 2.0 and the preparations seem better. The Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have been trained in advance, and names have already been matched with the 2002–04 voter lists.

The burden of paperwork has also eased a tad. The exemption no longer applies only to parents — now any relative listed in the 2002–04 rolls can serve as the reference point. Also, no documents need be submitted in the enumeration phase, but produced only upon notice.

Interestingly, when the ECI realised in Bihar that insisting on parents’ documents would exclude millions, it issued a press release stating that the papers of other relatives — uncles and aunts, maternal or paternal — would also serve. That informal concession has now been made official.

The Commission has also said that lists of deleted voters will be made public. This step could improve transparency — allowing affected individuals, parties and civil groups to lodge objections — but only if these lists are timely, accessible and accompanied by clear reasons.

In another tweak, the booth level agents (BLAs) of political parties will also now be allowed to submit up to 50 enumeration forms a day. It must be said that these relaxations have come only after repeated interventions by the Supreme Court.

Yet, the nationwide rollout of SIR exposes the ECI’s lack of genuine interest in ‘purifying’ voter rolls. During the entire Bihar exercise, it neither used its own de-duplication software to remove duplicate entries, nor ordered any independent verification of fake or doubtful data, nor followed physical verification procedures listed in its own manual. Strikingly, the ECI shows no intent to run these mandated checks to ensure fairness.

Nor does it appear worried about migrant workers losing their votes. The only concession: a family member may now fill out the form on behalf of someone temporarily away. Similarly, the ECI has shown no inclination to investigate why a disproportionate number of women have been struck off the voter rolls in Bihar.

Instead of ensuring that no eligible voter is left out, as the ECI is mandated to do, its SIR is driven by an impulse to exclude. It flips the burden of proof onto the voter. You must fill the enumeration form within the deadline or lose your vote — without notice, fair hearing or appeal. The process of verifying citizenship makes ample room for selective disenfranchisement of specific individuals or communities.

The arbitrary 2002–04 cut-off date also stays in force, even though official records show no citizenship verification took place back then. The list of acceptable documents remains the same; PAN cards, driving licences, ration cards and MGNREGA job cards still don’t count.

The Commission continues to dodge the Supreme Court’s order to include Aadhaar as the twelfth certifying document, arguing that Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship, but it fails to explain why the same logic does not apply to the other eleven documents, most of which also do not prove citizenship.

The verification process itself remains opaque and discretionary. In this sense, the new SIR is even more dangerous — because it essentially redefines voting as a privilege earned by ‘proving’ one’s citizenship.

The ECI hasn’t disclosed how many ‘illegal foreigners’ it found in Bihar, when this was cited as the justification for launching the SIR. Without answering that question, it is expanding the same flawed exercise nationwide, which is arbitrary to say the least.

When simpler, fairer, more transparent alternatives exist — such as the 2003 intensive revision or the 2016 National Electoral Roll Purification Programme — why choose such a complicated, citizen-unfriendly method? Smell a rat, anyone?

Views are personal. More of Yogendra Yadav’s writing can be read here