If 13 crore names have gone from the voter rolls, the Election Commission owes the country a full explanation

India’s elections have long been the envy of the democratic world, and not only because of their size. They are trusted. Losing candidates accept results, and voters believe their ballot counts. That trust is the Election Commission’s most valuable asset, and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is now putting it at risk.

Protesters in Delhi, Hyderabad, Nagaland and elsewhere say about 13 crore names have been struck off draft rolls across 30 states and Union Territories. In Telangana alone, more than 73 lakh voters have been served notices. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of running the exercise for the ruling party. A new movement, the Cockroach Janata Party, has made his resignation its central demand.

Revision is needed. So is proof

Nobody serious argues that voter lists should never be cleaned. Dead voters, duplicate entries and people who have moved away distort rolls and create room for fraud. A periodic revision is good practice.

But the scale claimed here is extraordinary, and the burden of proof lies with the Commission. If the deletions are legitimate, the Commission should be able to show it: how many names were removed on each ground, state by state and constituency by constituency, and how many people who were wrongly removed have been restored. It should publish that data in a form independent researchers can check.

What the Commission should do now

• Publish detailed, machine-readable deletion data for every constituency.
• Give every deleted voter a simple, free way to object, with a clear deadline before any election.
• Allow an independent audit of a sample of deletions by a body both government and opposition accept.
• Answer questions in public, including at a press conference, instead of leaving the field to rumour.

Calls for resignation and fresh investigations into old cases will not settle anything. Data will. A Commission confident in its work should welcome scrutiny. Every eligible Indian who loses the right to vote because of a clerical sweep is one too many.

The Rostrum View is The Daily Rostrum’s house editorial. Disagree? Send us a guest editorial.

Sources: Our report on the Hyderabad protest, Our report on the Kerala probe, ThePrint, Al Jazeera.