The right to vote is not a gift from the government

After the elimination of 65 lakh voters in Bihar, the victor can be explained as the CEC or its boss. If AP goes to polls without 44 lakh voters, who rules? And where is the rule of law?

The exercise began in Bihar in June 2025, where the draft roll dropped about 65 lakh names. It then moved to 12 States and Union Territories, where the deaths of overworked Booth Level Officers (BLOs) became a national controversy. Is en masse removal constitutional?

In Andhra Pradesh, enumeration ran from June 15 to July 24 of this year. By ECI’s own figures, 44,89,512 entries were removed before the draft roll as absent, shifted, dead, or duplicate. The electorate stood at 3,75,69,896 as on October 14. If this elimination is ‘selective’, is that not match-fixing?

Removing the dead and the duplicates is housekeeping that the law demands. But “absent” and “shifted” are judgments made at a doorstep. A migrant worker in Hyderabad or a student in Bengaluru is not a ghost voter. Each is a citizen whose name cannot be struck off without notice.

A rebuttable presumption:

On May 27, 2026, in Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India, the Supreme Court upheld SIR as a valid exercise of power under Article 324 and Section 21(3). It held that a name on the roll raises only a rebuttable presumption of eligibility. The protection given in Lal Babu Hussein (1995), it said, is no shield against verification.

On the way, the Court had made the ECI publish the names deleted in Bihar, with reasons, in August 2025. In the very next month, it directed that Aadhaar be accepted as a twelfth document of identity, though not as proof of citizenship.

But the court also drew a line that every citizen must know. The ECI may inquire into citizenship only for electoral purposes. It cannot finally declare anyone as a non-citizen. Doubtful cases must go to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and wrongly deleted citizens must be restored. The verdict settles the commission’s power. It does not excuse a single deletion made without notice, hearing and a reasoned order.

What ‘poll’ is it, and

what is its ‘role’?

The Supreme Court has settled that the Special Intensive Revision is lawful. Is it unconditional? In Andhra Pradesh’s Mandal and Zilla Parishad elections, the harder question is whether the State Election Commission will act before a court tells it to.

The right to vote is not a gift from the government of the day, though not spelt out clearly among Fundamental Rights. Article 325 forbids keeping anyone off the electoral roll on the grounds of religion, race, caste or sex. Every circular, every enumeration form and every Booth Level Officer’s knock on a door must serve these two Articles. That is the yardstick by which a citizen should measure both the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the Mandal Parishad (MPTC) and Zilla Parishad (ZPTC) elections now under way in Andhra Pradesh.

Without ‘kavach’, killing

‘voters’ is easy:

In Mohinder Singh Gill (1978), the Supreme Court described Article 324 as a reservoir of power. It also held that the power must be exercised fairly and within the laws Parliament makes. In Anoop Baranwal (2023), the Supreme Court tried to shield appointments of Election Commissioners from the executive. Parliament’s 2023 law then replaced the Chief Justice on the selection panel with a Union Minister, giving the government two of three votes. That looks lawful. It does not inspire the confidence the Court was looking for. It is about doubting the credibility of all three estates.

This year, reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi wrote 14 letters of objection over 10 months deepened the doubts. The ECI insists that every SIR order had the unanimous consent of all three commissioners. Dissent is not misconduct, and a press note claiming unanimity is not proof. The remedy is disclosure. Minutes and file notings are information under the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Two Commissions, one roll:

The MPTC and ZPTC polls are not conducted by the ECI. Articles 243K and 243ZA vest panchayat and municipal elections in the State Election Commission (SEC). But the SEC does not prepare its own rolls. It adopts the ECI’s Assembly rolls and divides them ward by ward, so a defect in one becomes a defect in the other. On October 9, the Supreme Court refused to let SIR become a reason to delay these polls, and said existing rolls would be used if the revised ones were not final. The urban polls were notified on October 14 and the rural polls on October 19, while the SIR roll was still being finalised. So the local polls appear to be running on the pre-SIR roll.

The SEC has not said so clearly. It must. Otherwise, a voter dropped in SIR may still find his name on the panchayat roll, while a new voter added through Form 6 may not.

Andhra’s test and doubts:

The trouble began with reservation. The State raised the Backward Classes quota for local bodies to 34 per cent. On October 1, the High Court quashed it for breaching the 50 per cent ceiling without the empirical data that the “triple test” of Vikas Kishanrao Gawali (2021) demands. It also directed that the polls be completed within six weeks. The Supreme Court declined to interfere on October 9.

A sincere political promise met the settled law.

What followed in the nomination window is the real concern. YSRCP alleged that its candidates were blocked from filing papers for 100 urban local bodies, and the High Court refused to extend the deadline. On October 21, the apex court asked the SEC to decide the plea. It observed that filing a nomination without hindrance is part of a free and fair election, and a constitutional duty of the SEC under Article 243ZA. Only then did the SEC suspend the process. It later reopened nominations in just 72 wards of four bodies. In the Parishad elections, the pattern repeated without remedy. In Penukonda, a video shows an MPTC nomination form being snatched and torn in front of the police. Director General of Police Harish Kumar Gupta recorded 31 election-related incidents in 13 districts on October 22 alone, nine of them involving nomination papers snatched or torn.

The violence was not one-sided. In Punganur, police booked a former YSRCP MP and 177 others on a TDP leader’s complaint. The TDP says the YSRCP filed more nominations than it did in many places. The SEC issued directions to Collectors and the police, but it did not extend the deadline.

The law is not helpless:

The law is not helpless here. Article 243-O bars courts from questioning panchayat elections except through an election petition, so that polls are not stalled midway. But an order that helps candidates enter the contest is not interference; it protects the election. In Kishansing Tomar (2006), a Constitution Bench held that the SEC has the same plenary powers in its field as the ECI and can demand men and material from the State.

The SEC’s duty is twofold: timely elections, and free and fair ones. The first is being met. The second is in doubt. The entire rule of law, the Constitution, and thereby democracy.

Why should rural candidates, more vulnerable than urban ones, get only circulars when urban wards get a fresh window? A blanket extension could upset a schedule set by the court, and the SEC must also guard against false complaints. The answer is evidence. The SEC holds the reports of Collectors and Superintendents of Police; it should publish them mandal by mandal, along with the action taken.

When withdrawals close on October 27, the number of seats won unopposed will be the clearest. Unanimity by choice is democracy. Unanimity by torn papers is a fraud on the Constitution. The voters of India, especially in Andhra Pradesh, whatever their party or none, deserve three things: a roll that includes them, a nomination centre they can reach without fear, and an umpire who gives reasons.

(The writer is former Registrar, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Madabhushi Sridhar Acharyulu

[email protected]