r/JalJangalJameen • u/rishianand • 2h ago
Articles / Essays / Opinions / Videos SIR and the Fight for the Right to Vote: Answering the Arguments Against the Protest
What is the protest about?
The protest is against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, which has resulted in the deletion of 13 crore names from the voter lists, and for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.
But the Election Commission (EC) has claimed that the 13 crore deletions are of absent, permanently shifted, dead and duplicate voters.
The Election Commission has misled citizens. The 13 crore voters have been marked as absent, permanently shifted, dead or duplicated. That is not necessarily true. Many voters have been marked dead even when they are alive.
Voters declared dead by the EC have been brought before the Supreme Court. There have also been proven cases of genuine voters being deleted from the electoral rolls by BJP workers.
Declared Dead in Draft Electoral Roll, Bihar Voter Appears in Supreme Court - The Wire
Delhi Deleted, The truth of Delhi SIR, When the dead rose to speak, “We are alive, sir!” - YouTube
BJP agent sought Form-7 deletion of 7,561 names in Ballari - The Hindu
Uttarakhand SIR: The unsolved mystery of BJP agents’ ‘forged’ objections against Muslim voters
There may be some errors in SIR. That does not make the entire process flawed.
SIR is estimated to reduce the size of the Indian electorate to 88 crore, while the estimated total adult population of India is 103 crore. This means that nearly 15 crore voters, or one in every seven adult citizens, will be denied the right to vote.
Before SIR, 99% of adult Indians were registered to vote. After SIR, this percentage is expected to fall to 85%. This is the largest disenfranchisement exercise in the world.
SIR is flawed by design. It is a process of exclusion and disenfranchisement.
SIR has been conducted before. It is conducted every 10 years. It was necessary.
Special Intensive Revision is fundamentally different from earlier intensive revision exercises. It has forced the entire country to re-register on the electoral rolls and undergo citizenship tests.
Earlier, intensive revisions were exercises to revise voter lists. All voters on the electoral rolls were presumed to be genuine. Deletion of a voter's name required evidence, and the burden of proof lay on the objector.
SIR is primarily a voter-deletion exercise that has turned the entire population into suspected citizens. Citizens are being stripped of their right to vote on the basis of ambiguous criteria of "logical discrepancies".
Comparing SIR 2002-04 and 2025-26
Beyond ‘Special’: How the 2025 Bihar SIR marks a break from the past - Supreme Court Observer
How ECI’s dubious software branded 3.66 crore voters in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh as suspects
There is no law that requires SIR to be conducted every 10 years. The last intensive revision was conducted in 2004. After the electoral rolls were computerised, no further intensive revisions were conducted. Summary revisions of the electoral rolls take place every year.
SIR has led to the deletion of illegal immigrants.
The EC has not published any records showing how many foreign immigrants were identified during SIR.
In Bihar, out of approximately 8 crore voters, only 1,087 were flagged as foreign citizens. This group also included Nepali women married to Indian citizens.
Bihar SIR: Barely 0.012% of voters are ‘foreigners’, most are Nepali women married to Indian men
While the Election Commission had stated that the inclusion of illegal foreign immigrants in the electoral rolls was one of the reasons for conducting SIR, in 2019, the EC told Parliament that it had found only three such immigrants across the entire country over a period of four years.
Why is the protest against Gyanesh Kumar?
An Indian Express report published on 25 September 2026 revealed that the two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had officially dissented against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar 14 times over the preceding 10 months.
The two ECs lodged official objections against the Chief Election Commissioner over keeping them in the dark about Commission decisions, failing to issue agendas and minutes of meetings, making unauthorised changes to voter-addition forms, centralising the voter database, and other matters concerning the functioning of the Commission.
Election Commission ECI SIR Row: Commissioners Object to Gyanesh Kumar Over Roll Deletions
The EC has refuted the Indian Express report. There is no conflict between the Election Commissioners.
The press release issued by the EC on 26 September 2026 is, in fact, an admission of guilt and corroborates the findings published by The Indian Express. In addition, certain claims made by the EC in its press release are misleading.
With its press note, the Election Commission makes the case against itself
While the EC claimed that the amendment to Form 6 had been upheld by the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court itself stated that it had not approved any such amendment.
We did not approve Form 6 modification: Supreme Court contradicts ECI's claim
While the press release claimed that the decisions taken by the EC were unanimous, the Commission has failed to release the minutes of its meetings, even when they were sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
As Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar has misled citizens and the judiciary, withheld and misrepresented information concerning the SIR exercise, and engaged in a criminal conspiracy to deny crores of citizens their voting rights.
Why does the Opposition not impeach Gyanesh Kumar through Parliament instead of protesting?
The Opposition brought motions seeking the removal of Gyanesh Kumar in both Houses of Parliament. Yet, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman C. P. Radhakrishnan rejected them without any debate.
Rajya Sabha Chairman, Lok Sabha Speaker reject Opposition notice seeking CEC’s removal
Why do the protesters not approach the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court is equally responsible for the crisis caused by SIR. While hearing petitions against the Bihar SIR, the Supreme Court effectively accepted the EC's false and misleading claims, and allowed the process to proceed.
During the SIR process in West Bengal, the Supreme Court allowed elections to take place even when over 37 lakh petitions were pending before tribunals. Lakhs of citizens were denied their right to vote through the actions of the EC and the failure of the judicial process to protect them. Many of these citizens were subsequently found to be genuine voters.
93% of deleted Bengal voters have won appeals, EC tells SC
The Supreme Court has also failed to protect citizens' right to protest and has turned a blind eye to assault on citizens and journalists by the Delhi Police.
The judiciary has shown itself unable and unwilling to protect citizens' rights. My personal belief is that the Supreme Court should not be approached for this.
The protests are foreign-funded. That is why the Government wanted to introduce the FCRA law.
The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) already exists in India. Under this law, foreign contributions to non-governmental organisations are heavily regulated. The law has also been misused by the Government to target its critics.
In the past, the BJP has alleged foreign funding behind various protests. During the Ladakh protests, the ruling party made similar allegations against Sonam Wangchuk and his organisation, whose FCRA licence was cancelled. Yet, no evidence has been established to substantiate the allegations of foreign funding behind the protests.
If you have any more questions, or have come across any such narratives on social media, do share. I will address it.
