Election Commission orders special drive to restore voters deleted in massive roll cleanup

The Election Commission of India has ordered an urgent door-to-door campaign to find and re-enrol genuine voters who were stripped from the electoral rolls during its controversial countrywide cleanup.

The decision follows weeks of political outrage and reports of internal division over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, which was carried out across 20 states and union territories. The scale of the deletions was massive. In the first two phases of the revision alone, officials removed nearly 7.7 crore names from the draft rolls, resulting in a net reduction of 5.6 crore voters. Another 24 lakh net deletions occurred during the third phase.

The scale of these removals triggered intense criticism from opposition parties, who accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of overseeing a flawed process that shut out eligible citizens. Internal friction also burst into the open following reports by the Indian Express that Election Commissioners S. S. Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had questioned the cleanup in internal notes. While the commission later insisted all decisions were unanimous, the new drive represents a clear effort to repair the damage.

Under the new directives, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will personally visit the homes of people who were on the previous voter lists but are missing from the current ones. The commission has instructed each officer to visit between 20 and 25 households a week, a pace that will stretch the verification campaign over a month.

On average, about 10% of the 800 to 900 voters registered at any given polling booth were deleted during the cleanup. This means individual officers will have to track down and verify fewer than 100 deleted voters in their respective areas.

To speed up the process and lower hurdles for voters, the commission has relaxed its rules. Anyone who was wrongly removed can be reinstated by filling out Form 6, and a decision made on 26 September means applicants will not need to submit a formal declaration alongside it.

The door-to-door visits aim to catch various groups of omitted electors. These include people who failed to submit valid proof of eligibility during the initial drive, voters who were mismapped on the registers, and those who have returned to addresses they had temporarily left. Officers will also use the visits to sign up young citizens who have turned 18 since the last revision.

To maintain transparency, officers must document the status of every deleted voter they check, categorising them as absent, permanently shifted, deceased, duplicate, or foreign nationals. These lists, along with any newly completed Form 6 applications, will be shared with the registration officers who hold the authority to approve additions. Political parties will also receive copies of these lists, giving them a chance to flag any genuine voters who might still be missing before the final registers are locked in.