Deletion of 130 million names: why Indian voters are on the streets over SIR
Since last year, 130 million names - more than Japan's population - have been removed from India's electoral roll through the special intensive revision (SIR), and the deletion of 130 million names has brought tens of thousands of protesters into Delhi demanding election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation.
Deletion of 130 million names: why Indian voters are on the streets over SIR
The names struck off India's voter lists since last year - 130 million in total, more than Japan's population - sit at the centre of a political storm. The special intensive revision (SIR) process behind the deletions has filled the capital's streets, drawn opposition marches, a supreme court petition and calls for the election commissioner to go.
The Modi government calls SIR a legitimate exercise to clean up the rolls, and the election commission says tens of millions of dead and duplicate names were removed; critics counter that millions of living citizens were struck off too.
Delhi under lockdown as protests demand Gyanesh Kumar's resignation
Over the weekend, Delhi was turned into a high-security zone of barricades, roadblocks and tens of thousands of police and paramilitaries, who detained thousands of people to stop youth-led protests demanding chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar step down immediately.
The pressure did not stop there:
- On Monday, opposition parties - who call SIR a weapon for vote theft - drew tens of thousands of supporters marching through Delhi
- They presented a petition to the supreme court demanding Kumar's resignation
- The youth-led Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, which called Saturday's protest, has vowed to fight on against SIR
- In Delhi, where SIR left millions off the draft list, protests are expected to continue this week
A dropped name, then a border: Shahida Fakir's case
The scale of the deletions is easiest to see through one file. Shahida Fakir, a 38-year-old migrant worker from a small village in West Bengal, backed her claim to a vote with an Indian birth certificate, family land documents from 1962 and proof her parents were on the roll for decades. When the final revised voter list came out in April, she was not on it.
Three months later, while her hearing was still pending, police picked her up, accused her of being an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant, and in July pushed her over the border into Bangladesh - a country she had never been to and where she remains. She said she had documents proving Indian citizenship and pleaded with the police not to send her across.
"I fell on their feet and begged the police not to send me to Bangladesh"
Those words, Fakir's own, were reported from a phone call. On the other side of the fence, a Bangladesh border guard officer said her papers had been examined: "We checked all her documents and are convinced that she is an Indian citizen".
Her family petitioned the supreme court in September, challenging the deportation; the Indian government was given a month to respond. Because millions of West Bengal voters are challenging their exclusion, the backlog means her case could take years to be heard.
The fear spreads well beyond one village. Mohammad Hedayet Ullah Siddiqui, 80, of North 24 Parganas district - grandson of a freedom fighter, third generation on the rolls - described his humiliation at finding his name gone and said he fears being sent to a detention camp.
From Bihar to West Bengal: how SIR spread and who it hits
The following year, the commission began SIR in Bihar, removing more than 6 million names - a move that raised concerns among human rights groups. Shortly afterwards, the BJP won a landslide in Bihar state elections. Opposition and civil society leaders allege SIR gave the BJP an electoral advantage in Bihar and West Bengal, claims the party denied.
Critics allege the pledge to purge the roll of illegal immigrants is being used to disenfranchise tens of millions of Muslims, other minorities, and poor and lower-caste communities who largely do not vote BJP.
- In West Bengal, where the BJP recently came to power and began a crackdown on 'illegal' immigrants with new detention centres, civil society groups say Muslims excluded by SIR are being targeted
- Some West Bengal residents stripped of their votes have had benefits taken away, and speak of terror at being accused of aliens in their own land
- Some say changes unilaterally implemented by Kumar have made the election commission the arbiter of Indian citizenship
Ronojoy Sen, senior fellow at the South Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore, said SIR has taken away citizens' right to vote, and that from how it was conducted it is difficult to see the motive as anything other than enhancing the BJP's election prospects.
From credible commission to contested arbiter
Sen said the election commission was for decades one of India's more credible, independent bodies, but that credibility has now been eroded. The turning point, critics say, came in 2023, when the Modi government changed the appointment process for the three-member election commission, giving majority control to the government for the first time. Within months it appointed Gyanesh Kumar despite opposition objections.
Nationwide protests did not begin until last month, when the Indian Express revealed that two election commission members had raised 14 objections to how voters were excluded - and were unilaterally overruled by Kumar.
The criticism has come from inside the institution's own past leadership:
- Three former election commissioners have criticised SIR as a hostile exercise that undermined the rolls by focusing on exclusion rather than inclusion
- Former chief election commissioner OP Rawat described changes to the voter registration form as "wrong and illegal"
- Ashok Lavasa, election commissioner from 2018 to 2020, called for SIR to be scrapped, saying an unfair procedure had been imposed on millions - asking, in his words, "How do you explain the deletion of 130 million names?"
SY Qureshi, chief election commissioner from 2010 to 2012, went further, claiming SIR is a national harassment exercise designed to throw Muslims off the electoral roll, and saying that restoring the deleted voters is the only way to restore the credibility of India's elections.
The BJP denied any political involvement or motive, accusing the Congress party of jealousy over recent victories and saying deleted voters can re-enrol. Party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi called the allegations disinformation, "being orchestrated to create an atmosphere of division and anarchy".
Late last week, the election commission capped the number of voter deletion forms - which let people object on behalf of others - after incidents in which thousands of such forms were submitted targeting legitimate Muslim voters. Protests in Delhi are expected to continue this week, while Fakir's supreme court case awaits an Indian government response.
