India’s Election Commission voter-roll controversy has intensified after reports revealed deep divisions within the three-member body over changes that have removed more than 13 million names from electoral registers.
The disclosures have fuelled opposition claims that the commission, constitutionally intended to operate independently, is being used to disenfranchise vulnerable voters for the benefit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The commission and BJP have rejected that characterisation.
The Election Commission has long been regarded as one of the pillars of India’s democracy, overseeing elections on a scale unmatched elsewhere. But opposition leaders and analysts now question whether voters can trust the registration process, the accuracy of the count and the institution responsible for administering elections.
Divisions inside India’s Election Commission
The Indian Express reported, citing internal documents and interviews, that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar repeatedly overruled objections from the two other commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
Indian law requires decisions by the commission to be taken by majority. Yet Sandhu and Joshi are said to have formally objected at least 14 times over the past ten months to measures they believed had been introduced without their approval.
Sandhu described the actions as “unauthorised and illegal”, with objections relating to voter registration requirements, the deletion and restoration of names, appeals against removals and the security of electoral data.
The dispute centres on the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, a nationwide exercise to update voter lists. Since June last year, more than 13 million names have been removed, according to the material reported by the newspaper.
Opposition parties claim the process has disproportionately affected poorer Indians, minorities and other marginalised groups. They took the issue to India’s Supreme Court, which largely allowed the process to proceed.
The commission has maintained that electoral data is secure and decentralised, with decisions made by local officials, including in remote areas. But the reported internal documents indicate that the ECINet digital platform, which records nearly a billion voters, became increasingly centralised and gave officials in New Delhi greater control over changes.
In one case cited in the reports, officials in Goa identified almost 100 voters who had been removed by mistake. The state’s chief electoral officer reportedly sent eight emails to New Delhi in a week seeking corrections, but received no response before the deadline expired.
Why the voter-list revision has caused concern
Under the SIR process, existing voters must provide evidence of their eligibility, including old birth, land or education records. Critics say this places an unfair burden on migrants, poorer citizens and people whose details may contain minor discrepancies, such as spelling differences in decades-old documents.
Opposition parties and civil society groups warn that large-scale deletions could alter the electorate ahead of elections. In West Bengal, nine million residents were reportedly removed from the rolls shortly before state elections held in April and May. Muslims accounted for nearly 34 per cent of those deleted, despite making up 27 per cent of the state’s population.
The BJP and supporters of the revision say it is intended to remove illegal migrants, dead people and fraudulent registrations. They have also portrayed some Muslims removed from electoral lists in border states as illegal Bangladeshi migrants, although Indian nationals have also been affected.
As the exercise spread, notices were reportedly sent to Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and his wife, as well as politicians, judges, senior civil servants and former ambassadors, requiring them to prove their Indian citizenship.
Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the revision represented a fundamental change in India’s approach to registering voters.
“Since the adoption of the Constitution, India has assumed the burden of ensuring that the last man or woman is registered to vote,” he said. “It is now the voter who must prove his or her entitlement to remain on the electoral rolls.”
SY Quraishi, who led the Election Commission between 2010 and 2012, said public confidence in the institution had been badly damaged.
“Today, that faith [in the election process] has shaken. It is very shocking for the nation,” he said. “The Election Commission used to be a very reputed institution. Now, it is totally dysfunctional – and that’s an understatement.”
Opposition demands resignation and reform
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the commission of “treason” and said its leaders could face trial if his party returns to power. He has also called for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign.
Speaking at a news conference in New Delhi, Mr Gandhi said: “Our elections are fundamentally broken.” He said the “sacred belief in elections” was disappearing, while questioning why anti-incumbency appeared to have failed to affect Mr Modi’s re-election victories in 2019 and 2024.
The Cockroach Janta Party, a Gen-Z pressure group whose protest movement led to the removal of India’s education minister in July, has threatened further demonstrations if Mr Kumar does not step down. It is also demanding changes to the way future election commissioners are appointed.
The Election Commission said the newspaper’s report reflected differing views and deliberations between the three commissioners, rather than formal statements of protest. Sambit Patra, a BJP spokesman, described disagreement within the body as “a sign of a healthy democracy”.
There is no firm evidence in the material presented that voter manipulation helped Mr Modi win the 2019 or 2024 general elections. However, the allegations have intensified a broader dispute over the independence and transparency of institutions that oversee Indian democracy.
Growing doubts over democratic safeguards
Analyst Asim Ali said India was at a “dangerous moment” in which the republic could face a breakdown. He said opposition parties increasingly believed that democratic safeguards had been weakened and that institutions including the Election Commission and Supreme Court had become vulnerable to political influence.
Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst and senior journalist, said impartiality was essential to the commission’s credibility. “The fact is that Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion,” he said.
Mr Vaishnav said criticism of Indian democracy had previously focused mainly on developments between elections, including restrictions on freedoms, an uneven rule of law and the concentration of power in the executive.
But he said the conduct of the Election Commission was now challenging the assumption that India’s elections remained “remarkably robust and competitive”. For former commissioner Mr Quraishi, restoring confidence will require action by the Supreme Court, the central government and Parliament.
