Yadav says all three Election Commissioners are responsible, including the two who voiced differences, for the SIR mess. (File picture)
EC’s 'left-out voters' drive is an admission of error, says Yogendra Yadav
Calling the drive for missing voters an acknowledgement of error, Yogendra Yadav says SIR must be scrapped and the electoral rolls revised afresh
Swaraj India leader and political scientist Yogendra Yadav has called for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to be scrapped, arguing that the Election Commission’s new drive to add “left-out voters” is an admission of error that can fix only a fraction of the damage.
In an interview with The Federal’s Sanket Upadhyay, Yadav said SIR “must be rolled back” and that a fresh, comprehensive revision should follow. He argued the damage occurred on paper and can be undone on paper.
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Yadav acknowledged that several elections have already been held under the revised rolls and cannot be reversed, and that political circumstances in those places have changed. But for the rest of the country, he said, the harm is still reversible.
He pointed to the Election Commission’s special exercise for “left-out voters”, a term he said amounts to what campaigners have been calling missing voters. In his view, this is a clear admission that something went wrong. He compared it to claiming a room has been cleaned to a global standard and then announcing a special drive to remove the remaining dirt.
Yadav said the remedy is inadequate. The original exercise was designed around deletions rather than both deletions and additions, he argued, and the Commission ignored his advice on this. Now, voters who have been left out are being asked to come forward and file Form 6. Poor and marginalised people, he said, may not know the exercise is happening, or may lack the time, resources and documents to apply before the deadline. “If 100 errors have been made, at most 20% to 30% may be corrected,” he said.
His proposed solution is to return to the pre-SIR rolls (2025) and carry out a Special Summary Revision (SSR). Under it, Booth Level Officers would physically verify the existing roll household by household, collecting documents and signatures wherever a name needs to be added or deleted. Names should be removed only with proof that the person has died, is a duplicate entry, or has genuinely moved away or is absent. Done properly, he said, this could remove two to four crore names while adding 10 to 14 crore eligible voters.
