On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi told India’s top election official on X that it was “Gyanesh, it’s done, bro. Time to resign.” Hours earlier, police had detained several opposition lawmakers who were marching to the Election Commission’s headquarters in New Delhi. Gandhi said that more than 300 lawmakers had joined the march. Delhi Police, which answers to the federal government, stopped them before they could put their questions to the commission.
India had about 969 million registered voters in 2024, meaning that even a 1 per cent error could affect nearly 10 million people. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls operates on a far larger scale. Local media reports indicate that it has removed 130 million names from draft electoral rolls. In Phase 2 alone, the Election Commission removed approximately 51.8 million names across 12 states and territories, representing a 10.2 per cent decline. Tamil Nadu’s draft roll lost 9.7 million voters, or 15.19 per cent, while Uttar Pradesh, which votes in February and March, saw 28.9 million names excluded from its draft roll.
The commission defends the exercise, saying it removes the names of deceased, duplicate, untraceable, and relocated voters and that deleted voters can re-enrol at any time. The Supreme Court upheld the SIR as lawful on May 27. However, a lawful process can still produce incorrect results.
Bihar was the first state to undergo the exercise. The commission removed approximately 6.5 million names from its August 2025 draft electoral roll. It classified 2.2 million voters as deceased and 700,000 as registered in more than one location. The largest group, comprising 3.6 million people, was labelled as having permanently relocated or as being untraceable at their registered addresses.
That last classification depends on an official’s visit on a particular day. India’s economy relies heavily on migrant workers who spend months away from home but retain their voting rights in their home constituencies. A system that mistakes temporary absence for permanent relocation risks striking eligible citizens off the electoral rolls. The commission did add 2.15 million new names before publishing Bihar’s final roll, but the exercise nevertheless resulted in a net reduction of 4.7 million voters.
Transparency has also lagged. Petitioners told the Supreme Court that the commission had failed to explain clearly why individuals were deleted. In August 2025, the court ordered it to publish a booth-by-booth list of the 6.5 million excluded names. An institution confident in its work should not need a court order to disclose such information.
The Wire reports that 91 per cent of decided appeals in West Bengal resulted in the restoration of excluded voters. Every large-scale exercise produces some errors, but when more than nine in ten reviewed deletions are overturned on appeal, the figures raise serious questions about the process. The same publication notes that approximately 52 million Phase 2 deletions, a figure also cited in a communication from a United Nations special rapporteur, remain impossible to verify independently until the commission releases its data.
Concerns have also emerged within the commission itself. The Indian Express reported that two of its three members had objected at least 14 times over ten months to decisions concerning the revision. Court petitions allege that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded these objections between October 2025 and August 2026. They further allege that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar acted without their agreement.
On October 5, the Supreme Court issued notices to the central government, the commission, and Kumar. It declined to suspend him for the time being but warned that it could reconsider or recall decisions taken without the required unanimity. No court has ruled on the allegations. Kumar and the commission deny bias.
The government cannot dismiss this as someone else’s dispute. In 2023, Parliament passed a law removing the Chief Justice of India from the panel responsible for selecting election commissioners and replacing that position with a Union Cabinet minister. The change gave the government two of the panel’s three seats. Kumar was the first chief election commissioner appointed under the new arrangement. In April, the presiding officers of both Houses of Parliament refused even to admit the opposition’s notice seeking his removal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party denies any bias. Nevertheless, the government changed the selection rules, appointed the chief election commissioner under the revised framework, and now faces questions from opposition lawmakers whom police have detained while they sought answers. This sequence of events risks further eroding public trust.
Many of the protesters are young, and the employment figures help explain their frustration. The International Labour Organization and the Institute for Human Development reported in their India Employment Report 2024 that young people accounted for 83 per cent of India’s unemployed workforce. The report also found that educated young people now constitute a substantially larger share of the unemployed than they did two decades ago. Degrees no longer guarantee employment.
That frustration found an outlet in the Cockroach Janta Party. Strategist Abhijeet Dipke launched the satirical group online on May 16, with a name that parodies the BJP. Authorities restricted access to its X account in India within days, but the movement continued to grow. Weeks of protests over alleged examination paper leaks forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign in July. He became the first minister in Narendra Modi’s cabinet to leave office under public pressure since 2014.
The group now demands a suspension of the SIR, an independent inquiry, and the restoration of the electoral rolls to their January 2025 status. It plans to gather at Jantar Mantar on Saturday if Kumar remains in office. Analyst Sanjeev K. Sharma says young people dissatisfied with unemployment and shortcomings in the education system are using the protests as a platform. Analyst Ullekh N. P. argues that the government’s credibility has fallen to its lowest point since 2014.
Young voters may also be particularly vulnerable. First-time voters often have less extensive documentary records than older citizens, making them more susceptible to exclusion from a process that requires documentation and repeated follow-ups.
The remedies are clear. The commission should publish details of every deletion, organised by district and reason. It should submit its recorded objections to the court and establish a fast, free process for restoring eligible voters to the rolls before Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls. The government should end the detentions and answer the questions being raised.
A democracy of nearly one billion voters cannot demand that its citizens prove they exist without ensuring that the process is transparent, fair, and accountable. The larger the purge, the greater the burden on the state to justify it.
