Legal, political impact of SC’s ‘publish deleted voters list’ order to EC

The panel discussion on Capital Beat featured advocate Neha Rathi, counsel for the Association for Democratic Reforms and Mahua Moitra in the SIR case, transparency activist Anjali Bharadwaj, and Puneet Nicholas Yadav, political editor of The Federal. The focus was the court’s order, its legal and procedural impact, and the political developments surrounding the Congress party’s intensified “vote chori” campaign.

Court’s directions to EC

The order mandates the EC to display the list of missing voters on the websites of all district electoral officers, along with the reasons for their exclusion from the draft roll. The information must be publicised in widely circulated vernacular newspapers, broadcast on Doordarshan and other channels, and posted on the social media handles of district election officers where available.

Additionally, the booth-wise list must be displayed on the noticeboards of all panchayat bhavans, block development offices, and panchayat offices, ensuring manual access for the public. Aggrieved persons may file claims with a copy of their Aadhaar card, following the court’s acceptance of Aadhaar as valid identification in the process.

Also read: Supreme Court directs EC to publish list of 65 lakh deleted voters

Neha Rathi described the order as “a significant victory” for petitioners, noting that the EC had earlier maintained it was under no statutory obligation to publish the names or reasons for deletion. She emphasised that the court’s monitoring of the matter until the next hearing is an important safeguard.

Transparency and accessibility emphasised

Anjali Bharadwaj highlighted that the court had recognised the violation of the fundamental right to information in the SIR process. The directions to publish the names and reasons for deletion are intended to ensure that affected voters can verify their status and seek redress.

The order also requires decentralised access to the lists, enabling those without internet connectivity to check their details locally. The court limited the online search function to EPIC number-based look-ups but maintained the need for physical lists at the grassroots level.

Bharadwaj pointed out that the EC’s implementation of past Supreme Court orders had often fallen short, making the execution of these directions critical. She stressed that transparency alone would not automatically resolve all issues but was an essential first step towards protecting voter rights.

Implementation challenges and timelines

Puneet Nicholas Yadav noted that the EC must now move quickly to comply, as the court has set a deadline for the publication of the lists. While the EC argued that printing and formatting would take several days, it acknowledged that it already holds the relevant data, having shared it with booth-level agents of political parties.

Also read: Onus is on EC to prove voter ineligibility, not the citizen

Rathi added that there was “no getting around” the deadline, as the data exists and only needs to be digitised and displayed. However, both she and Yadav raised concerns over the ECI’s past reluctance to act in full compliance with transparency measures.

Concerns over timing of SIR exercise

The panel also discussed the Opposition’s longstanding objection to conducting the SIR just months before the Bihar elections. Yadav recalled that previous similar exercises, such as the 2003 revision in Bihar, were carried out with far more lead time.

Bharadwaj described the current SIR as “unprecedented” in scope, alleging that it effectively asks citizens to prove their citizenship and is being rolled out nationwide, starting with a poll-bound state. She said the ECI had not provided guidelines from the 2003 exercise, nor the “independent appraisal” it cited as the basis for the current revision.

The lack of consultation with political parties or citizens, she argued, undermines public trust and raises questions over the rationale for the timing and urgency of the process.

Also read: Congress uses Anurag Thakur’s ‘doubtful voters’ claim to attack EC, BJP again

Congress intensifies ‘vote chori’ campaign

Alongside the legal developments, the discussion examined the Congress’s decision to expand its “vote chori” (vote theft) campaign to 70 Lok Sabha constituencies. According to Yadav, the move follows internal reviews identifying around two dozen seats lost by margins under 50,000 votes in the last general election.

These include constituencies such as Central Bangalore’s Mahadevapura assembly segment, where the Congress lost by 32,707 votes, and others in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Chhattisgarh. The Congress plans to investigate alleged irregularities in voter rolls in a staggered manner, releasing findings periodically to sustain public attention.

The campaign will also involve allies in the INDIA bloc, with Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan identified as key states for scrutiny. The Opposition aims to spotlight not just voter deletions, as in the SIR case, but also issues of voter suppression and alleged fraudulent additions.

Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar

Yadav added that Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav will launch a ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar on August 17. The 13-day, 1,300-km tour will focus on raising awareness about the SIR process, alleged electoral irregularities, and voter rights.

Also read: EC to Rahul over 'vote chori' claims: Give proof, don't use 'dirty phrases'

The yatra is part of the Congress’s broader strategy to keep electoral integrity issues in public discourse ahead of the Bihar elections. The party intends to frame the campaign as a fight against disenfranchisement, connecting local grievances to the larger national debate over the ECI’s conduct.

(The content above has been transcribed from video using a fine-tuned AI model. To ensure accuracy, quality, and editorial integrity, we employ a Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) process. While AI assists in creating the initial draft, our experienced editorial team carefully reviews, edits, and refines the content before publication. At The Federal, we combine the efficiency of AI with the expertise of human editors to deliver reliable and insightful journalism.)