Measuring success is complicated; assessing the impact of one’s action can be even more challenging. The desire to be successful is different from the desperation to demonstrate success.
Stakeholders have different yardsticks for measuring performance depending on their interest leaving the vital question “how does one measure one’s own success?” The Election Commission of India (ECI) could perhaps be in a trilemma in the wake of its June 24, 2025 announcement of its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls in Bihar, caught among political parties, citizens, the judiciary, and its own conscience.
Once again, it finds itself in an avoidable imbroglio, responding to the judiciary’s questions arising out of the justified anxiety of millions of electors, valid apprehensions of neutral observers and unverified suspicion of political interest groups.
The ECI embarked on a seemingly laudable and perfectly legal exercise to purify electoral rolls, declaring its resolve to include all “eligible” and exclude “ineligible” persons. The underlying assumption was that some “ineligible” people had infiltrated the electoral rolls, escaping detection during its due process of documentary and physical scrutiny that Electoral Registration Officers carry out before listing anyone in the electoral rolls. Even the mandatory periodic revisions could not filter them out over the years. No one could possibly object to this effort, however formidable the task. Yet, the ECI found itself facing a barrage of opposition from political parties and civil society organisations for undertaking this mammoth exercise and imposing an impossible demand on clueless citizens in Bihar as they prepare to exercise their most powerful right — of electing their representatives. It is akin to asking for a marriage certificate after years of happy married life with children as proof of a legal union.
An institution of repute
To be sure, if there is one organisation in the country that is capable of carrying out gigantic exercises, it would, without doubt, be the ECI. From preparing the first electoral rolls in the 1950s in trying circumstances, to updating the rolls necessitated by the reorganisation of States in 1956 when it was suggested that the term of the House be extended to allow the ECI enough time to revise the rolls. The ECI did not want a constitutional amendment because of its inability to complete a mandatory requirement and lived up to the challenge. Since then, it has repeatedly demonstrated its capabilities in handling mega tasks with astounding success.
Whether it is enrolling a billion people or setting up a million polling stations, mobilising over 18 lakh polling officials for conducting elections and training them, or dealing with moving 30 lakh electronic voting machines, the ECI has done it with aplomb, ably supported by the government machinery. In the process, it has earned the gratitude of an entire country and the envy of democracies across the world. Countries that may have the spirit but not the systems have often looked upon the ECI as a model in creating standard operating procedures, in galvanising resources, and its effective consultative approach in building consensus among political parties.
This has earned the ECI the trust of voters and imparted it a credibility that has been acknowledged by the media, supported by civil society organisations and earned it the respect of the judiciary. Indeed, some have referred to it as “gold standard”, belying the cynics who believe that “all that glitters is not gold.”
The Bihar exercise
It is in this backdrop that the sudden announcement by the ECI to carry out a purge of the Bihar electoral rolls has invited unpleasant reactions. As opponents question the ECI’s motives of raising the spectre of mass disenfranchisement, the ECI is in overdrive trying to demonstrate the ease with which this apparently unwieldy operation involving nearly eight crore registered electors in Bihar is being completed.
Meanwhile, it has eased some stringent procedures, allowing those enrolled after 2003 to use the entries of their parents in the 2003 electoral rolls to support their citizenship claim. It has also allowed Booth Level Officers (BLO) to accept enumeration forms without the prescribed document to prove the eligibility of the post-2003 electors. The relaxations by the ECI obviously ramped up the daily submission of enumeration forms giving the ECI the basis for claiming success of its operations and the ‘support’ of the affected electors. This, supposedly, would deflate the clamour of the complainants and perhaps convince the higher judiciary that the political sound and fury signifies nothing.
It, however, remains unclear how the BLOs will “recommend” for inclusion in the draft roll such electors whose forms are not accompanied by documents and how the Electoral Registration Officer/Assistant Electoral Registration Officer decides their eligibility in the absence of those documents. Will the ECI ask such electors to provide the proof of their eligibility/citizenship after the draft roll is published on August 1? If it agrees to expand the list of prescribed documents, as suggested by the Supreme Court of India (to consider the Aadhaar card, Electoral Photo Identity Card, or EPIC and ration card), will it not simply amount to verification of identity, and not citizenship? Are we then not back to square one?
Will the indicator of the ECI’s success be the number of “duly filled” forms submitted along with “self-attested documents” and electors readmitted to the rolls that were supposed to be purified? Or, will its success be the number of “ineligible” electors disenfranchised? Those who are dead, who have migrated or have enrolled twice should have been weeded out in the normal course. Did their exclusion warrant this extraordinary exercise?
On presumption of citizenship
By ascribing presumption of citizenship to the electors in the 2003 list, is the ECI claiming that after its current SIR, all those in the electoral rolls will be accepted by the government as citizens as in the Citizenship Act and no one’s credentials will hereafter be questioned? Is the government willing to accept this presumption?
No individual is responsible for being born where she is, nor for creating documentary evidence of the date and place of her birth, parentage or citizenship. The authority empowered by the law is. Like many countries, India too has a law under which it is not the ECI that is designated as the competent authority: at least not as yet. However, broad the ECI’s shoulders are, they may not be strong enough to carry someone else’s burden.
Let us see for whom the bell tolls in Bihar.
Ashok Lavasa is former Election Commissioner and Union Finance Secretary of India
Published – July 18, 2025 12:16 am IST