Former IAS and IFS officers defend Election Commission and SIR in open letter

Former officers challenge claims of electoral manipulation

A group of 124 retired senior bureaucrats, including former Indian Administrative Service and Indian Foreign Service officers, has published an open letter defending the Election Commission of India and its Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

The letter directly addresses political groups and protesters who have claimed recent elections and voter list updates were rigged. Rebuffing the allegations, the former officials stated that questioning election systems is every citizen's right, but the burden of proof rests entirely on those making accusations without credible evidence.

The intervention comes as demonstrations organised by the Cockroach Janata Party and other opposition leaders continue in Delhi, where protesters have demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Security forces in the capital have barricaded roads leading to central Delhi, diverted traffic, and temporarily closed several metro stations following detentions of political activists attempting to gather at Jantar Mantar.

Institutional safeguards and recent election records

Prominent signatories to the letter include former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal alongside retired IAS officers R D Kapur, Samirendra Chatterjee, Gopal Krishna, Vivek Bhardwaj, and Navneet Sehgal.

In their joint statement, the officers highlighted the shift away from earlier decades marked by booth capturing, poll violence, and ballot-box stuffing. They pointed to built-in operational checks in modern Indian elections, including polling agents from competing parties, the physical sealing of electronic voting machines, strong-room security, and voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) verification.

"A system cannot be honest when you win and rigged when you lose," the letter said, noting that under the current Election Commission setup, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lost several state elections and lost its overall parliamentary majority in the 2024 general election.

Cleaning up the electoral rolls

Defending the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, the former officials described the exercise as essential to maintaining the integrity of voter registers across the country. An uncleaned roll, they argued, fails to protect voters and instead enables fraud.

They cited the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections as evidence of the procedure's efficacy. During that drive, officials identified approximately 22 lakh deceased voters and 7 lakh duplicate entries, while adding around 21.5 lakh new voters to the lists. The resulting election recorded no re-polling incidents and registered the highest overall voter turnout in the state since 1951.

The letter also noted that the SIR framework incorporates multiple layers of administrative recourse, including official notices, formal hearings, appeals, and active involvement by booth-level agents representing all political parties. They added that the Supreme Court had already examined the process, instituted further safeguards, and re-affirmed the Election Commission's authority to carry out the revision.