The struggle against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Karnataka, sustained by the tireless efforts of several people’s organisations and awareness campaigns, appears to be entering a significant phase. Yet, unlike the anti-NRC movement of 2019–20, the campaign has not generated comparable public momentum or participation.
A key reason is the limited understanding among affected communities of the long-term implications of SIR. While the NRC was widely perceived as a direct threat to citizenship, the dangers posed by SIR have not been communicated with the same clarity. There is growing concern that individuals removed from electoral rolls through the SIR process could eventually face the erosion of citizenship rights, exclusion from government welfare schemes, and the weakening of constitutional protections. If such consequences begin to materialise, awareness and resistance among marginalised, Dalit, and oppressed communities are likely to intensify. As a result, the demand for the withdrawal of SIR may gather mass support only after the process has run its course, making it essential for people’s organisations to prepare for a longer and grittier struggle.
At the same time, certain assumptions circulating within sections of the movement deserve closer scrutiny. A widely held belief suggests that Karnataka can make SIR more people-friendly through administrative interventions and political will, particularly with the support of the Congress government. This expectation persists despite the fact that similar efforts have not succeeded in states such as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where opposition parties and grassroots organizations have mounted a far more sustained resistance.
Several proposals have emerged from within activist circles. These include conducting Gram Sabha-based verification of voter lists (social audit of the electoral rolls), preparing parallel voter registers, allowing Gram Sabha approval to substitute for missing documents, issuing residence certificates at the local level, digitizing available records, creating smart cards for residents, and extending the deadline for document submission by six months. Reported The Hindu.
Underlying these proposals is the hope that Karnataka can prevent the exclusion of any eligible voter from the electoral rolls. Activists have also warned that a larger agitation could follow if the Election Commission refuses to accommodate these demands.
Responding to public pressure, Congress leaders and the Chief Minister have repeatedly instructed party workers to ensure that no eligible voter is left out during the SIR exercise. Such statements have further strengthened the belief in some quarters that Karnataka may be able to overcome the dangers associated with SIR through state-level intervention.
The democratic spirit behind these demands is Unquestionable. Similar proposals have been endorsed by several scholars and former Election Commissioners who view them as part of a broader project of democratizing electoral administration.
The central issue, however, is not the democratic aspirations themselves. The question is whether these aspirations can actually be implemented within the legal framework governing SIR.
Here lies the fundamental contradiction. SIR, by its very design, appears to function in a manner that limits democratic oversight rather than expanding it. Even the modest mechanisms of public accountability that existed in earlier electoral processes seem increasingly inapplicable within the current framework.
This raises important questions about the constitutional character of SIR, the extent of authority available to state governments to intervene in the process, and the realistic prospects of protecting vulnerable communities from exclusion.
Demands for Gram Sabha oversight, smart cards, social audits, and community verification are undoubtedly democratic and desirable. Yet there is a danger in assuming that existing governments can simply implement these measures and thereby neutralise the exclusionary potential of SIR. Such expectations rest on the assumption that state governments possess meaningful authority over a process that is largely beyond their control.
That reality may help explain why states with stronger grassroots movements, more active civil societies, and comparatively responsive governments—including Kerala, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu—have been unable to introduce significant people-friendly modifications to the SIR process.
A serious engagement with SIR therefore requires moving beyond optimism, assumptions, and administrative wish lists. The challenge is to understand the process in its existing legal and political form and to develop strategies of resistance grounded in that reality rather than in expectations of accommodation.
SIR and the Constitutional Limits of State Governments
A recurring demand in the ongoing opposition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process is that state governments should intervene to make voter verification more democratic and inclusive. Proposals such as Gram Sabha scrutiny of voter rolls, social audits, community verification mechanisms, and locally issued documentation have gained support among activists and sections of civil society.
These demands arise from legitimate democratic concerns. Yet a closer examination of the constitutional and legal framework governing electoral rolls raises an important question: do state governments actually possess the authority to introduce such measures within the current system?
The Constitution of India, through Articles 324 to 326, vests the superintendence, direction, control, and conduct of elections to Parliament and State Legislatures in the Election Commission of India (ECI). This arrangement has long been criticized for limiting democratic oversight and accountability. Nevertheless, until constitutional reforms alter this framework, it remains the governing reality.
Precisely because of these limitations, proposals such as Gram Sabha-based verification and social audits represent important democratic reforms that deserve serious consideration. The issue, however, is not whether such reforms are desirable, but whether state governments can legally implement them under the existing constitutional structure.
The answer appears to be clear. Without constitutional amendments or changes to the relevant laws governing elections, state governments do not possess the authority to introduce such reforms in the preparation of Assembly electoral rolls.
The need for a legislative reform on how state elections function may be read here. A year ago, Janaagraha found that only 34 of the State Election Commissions had the powers to undertake delimitation and reservation exercises, revealing that state commissions are unable to enforce independent timelines for the conduct of local elections. This study may be read here.
The legal basis for the current SIR exercise is found in Article 324 (1) of the Constitution, Sections 21 and 13CC of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the relevant provisions of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
Article 324(1) places the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections under the authority of the Election Commission of India.
Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 grants the Commission broad powers to undertake revisions of electoral rolls whenever it considers such action necessary. Electoral rolls prepared outside the Commission’s directions do not possess legal validity.
But the SIR process goes beyond a routine electoral revision and effectively operates as a form of citizenship verification and exclusion. Whether such an exercise falls within the Commission’s constitutional authority remains a matter of intense legal and political debate. However, Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality and the legal basis of this exclusionary SIR in its May 27, 2026 judgement.
Read Vote for Democracy and SabrangIndia’s special analysis of the verdict here.
Section 13CC further strengthens the Commission’s authority by placing all election officials, including Chief Electoral Officers of the states, under the control, superintendence, and disciplinary authority of the Election Commission while performing election-related functions. This is arguably against the intrinsic federal principals also vaguely enshrined in the Constitution, especially if the central ECI becomes a handmaiden or tool of the regime in power.
Read Vote for Democracy’s multi-lingual Timeline: From shielding Election Commissioners to restricting scrutiny of election documents, including video footage here.
As a result, the design, implementation, and operational guidelines governing SIR fall within the Commission’s jurisdiction. During the conduct of the exercise, state election machinery functions under the Commission’s authority rather than under the direct control of state governments.
Some activists have pointed to provisions contained in the Election Commission’s 2023 revision manual, which allow draft electoral rolls to be read out in Gram Sabhas during certain revision exercises. However, those provisions apply to the routine Intensive Revision -IR- categories of electoral roll revisions and not the exceptional and Special Intensive Revision-SIR which is envisaged to verify and exclude citizens and not just routine voter verification.
Read Citizens for Justice and Peace’s exclusive training manual for activists here and here.
The guidelines issued separately for SIR do not provide for Gram Sabha scrutiny. Consequently, any attempt by a state government to impose alternative procedures outside the Commission’s framework could potentially conflict with the legal obligations imposed on election officials under Section 13CC.
A distinction must also be drawn between the Election Commission of India and State Election Commissions. State Election Commissions conduct elections to local bodies and operate within a different constitutional framework. Their powers do not extend to the preparation of electoral rolls for Parliamentary and Assembly elections.
The recent SC judgement has made it mandatory even for the voter list prepared for the Local Body elections to pass the SIR test. Thus it has further reinforced the centralization of authority in matters linked to SIR. As a consequence, even the limited space available to state institutions appears increasingly constrained.
The broader implication is that unless constitutional reforms transfer greater authority over electoral roll preparation to states or create stronger mechanisms of local democratic oversight, state governments have little room to modify the framework established by the Election Commission.
This constitutional reality helps explain why states such as Kerala, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu—despite possessing strong opposition parties, an active citizenry, and robust grassroots movements—have been unable to implement many of the democratic safeguards demanded by activists.
Read SabrangIndia’s exclusive interrogation into numbers of exclusion of voters, state-wise, here.
Previous robust analyses by the Reporter’s Collective into the ongoing West Bengal SIR process, that revealed issues like a) how the Commission misled the Supreme Court, b) serious software glitches that facilitated mechanical exclusions, c) ECI’s authorisation of hand-picked personnel to supersede legally designated officers responsible for voter verification, d) rules changes without public notice and e) WhatsApp messages and oral commands complementing written regulations. These investigations may be read here, here, here and here.
The debate surrounding SIR is therefore not simply about the possibility of constitutional (read sympathetic) administrative interventions. It is also about the unchecked concentration of electoral authority within existing constitutional structures and the lack of constitutional mandate for the state governments to intervene. Unfortunately this authority has also been lent judicial affirmation.
Smart Cards and Residence Certificates are not SIR Documents
Recent statements by the Karnataka’s Congress leadership have highlighted efforts to address concerns surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. The Chief Minister has reportedly directed officials to expedite the issuance of Residence Certificates, while the newly-appointed KPCC president BK Hariprasad has urged the state government to adopt a people-centric approach in dealing with SIR-related issues.
The difficulty, however, lies in the distinction between a general residence certificate and the category of requirements of documents for a Permanent Residence Certificate (PRC) and recognised under the SIR framework.
Read an earlier caution on the issue here.
According to the criteria laid down by the Election Commission, the relevant requirement is not merely proof of current residence but proof of permanent residence through documents recognised under the prescribed verification process.
Experiences from other states especially West Bengal illustrate the limits of state-level intervention. In West Bengal, the Election Commission initially declined to accept even the permanent Domicile Certificates leave alone what was called as the arbitrary Residence Certificate! Only after sustained political opposition, public mobilisation, and legal challenges was the Commission persuaded to recognize Domicile certificates. Even then, their acceptance was made contingent upon specific procedures, verification requirements, and certification by competent authorities.
This precedent raises doubts about whether residence certificates issued through an expedited state-level process would automatically satisfy the Commission’s requirements. The authority to determine the validity and acceptability of documents remains with the Central Election Commission.
More over the recent May 2026 SC judgement has endorsed the constitutional authority and legal power of the Election Commission to prescribe documentary regime that it deems fit to satisfy eligibility criteria, discretion in determining timelines, documentary requirements, and verification procedures under SIR. This has significantly expanded the Commission’s unchecked autonomy while reducing opportunities for democratic oversight.
“Eleven Logical Discrepancies”: Illogical Criteria
One of the most controversial aspects of the process concerns the use of what are described as “logical discrepancy” tests. According to reports from earlier phases of implementation, these checks are intended to identify inconsistencies within submitted records and family-linkage claims.
When it was first introduced exclusively for the West Bengal SIR only four or five “discrepancies were listed. Now emboldened by the SC judgement the ECI has increased this exclusionary criteria 11 (“absurd”) discrepancies for the remaining states, despite facing strong independent criticisms on the four/five listed for West Bengal. Some of these criticisms may be read here and here.
The fresh list of logical discrepancies include:
- More than six individuals claiming the same parents.
- A parent-child age gap of less than fifteen years.
- A parent-child age gap exceeding fifty years.
- Less than nine months between the birth dates of siblings.
- Differences in parental names between earlier and current records.
- Age records that do not correspond logically across different electoral revisions.
- Reliance solely on Aadhaar as supporting documentation.
- A grandparent-grandchild age gap of less than forty years.
- Mismatches in the father’s name across records.
- Spelling variations in names.
- Changes in the recorded relationship between individuals across different electoral records.
Supporters of SIR view such checks as tools for maintaining the integrity of electoral rolls. However, these criteria risk excluding large numbers of genuine voters because discrepancies in names, ages, and family records are common in official documents across India.
The broader concern is that each successive phase of implementation appears to introduce additional layers of scrutiny increase the likelihood of exclusion rather than inclusion, particularly among poor, marginalised, migrant, Dalit, Adivasi, and minority communities whose documentation histories are often incomplete or inconsistent.
Within this framework, proposals such as Gram Sabha certification, locally issued smart cards, or residence certificates face a fundamental obstacle. Unless the Election Commission formally recognises such documents, they do not automatically qualify as valid proof under SIR procedures.
A Second Freedom Struggle as the Only Way Forward?
In the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the central issue is not merely the exclusion of voters from electoral rolls but the broader implications such exclusions may have for citizenship, constitutional rights, and democratic participation.
From this perspective, partial safeguards and administrative adjustments are unlikely to address the underlying problem, as has been proved in the 13 states where SIR has been completed. As long as SIR remains in force, concerns persist that millions of poor and marginalized citizens who lack complete documentary records may remain vulnerable to exclusion. Those possessing stronger documentation may be able to withstand the immediate impact, but the structural risks embedded in the process would remain unchanged.
This requires a political response of a much larger and more intense scale.
Calls are increasingly being made for a nationwide democratic mobilisation comparable in spirit to a second freedom struggle—one aimed not at colonial rule, but a new colonial interpretation of Citizenship. Hence the need of defending constitutional democracy, civil liberties, and the rights of citizens against what is perceived as growing centralization of power.
Within this framework, opposition parties should move beyond rhetorical criticism and undertake forms of organised political resistance capable of confronting the Election Commission and the Union government directly. Extraordinary circumstances demand extraordinary measures and that routine electoral politics may be inadequate to meet the challenge.
But the willingness of mainstream opposition parties to pursue such a course is in doubt. The electoral calculations, competition for office, and institutional constraints have limited the capacity of opposition forces to mount a sustained challenge to the prevailing political order.
The result, in this view, is a widening gap between the scale of the perceived threat and the scale of the political response.
Attention therefore turns to the Indian citizenry, people’s organisations, social movements, trade unions, student groups, and ordinary citizens. The democratic resurgence must emerge through broader public mobilization “WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA”
At the same time, significant obstacles remain. Although concerns about democracy, citizenship, and constitutional rights are growing, public awareness of the long-term implications of SIR remains uneven. Organisational capacity is fragmented, and the kind of nationwide movement required for a sustained democratic struggle has yet to take shape.
Karnataka is not unique in this regard. The limitations visible within the state’s anti-SIR movement reflect broader challenges facing democratic movements across the country. Dependence on political parties, particularly on ruling Congress party, and within existing institutions, has often weakened the autonomy, preparedness, and strategic clarity of people’s movements.
These tensions are increasingly evident in debates over the direction, goals, and methods of the anti-SIR campaign itself.
The democratic resurgence demand the complete withdrawal of SIR and the protection of democratic rights and the strategies for the same should be directed towards grass root democratic mobilisation and not a dependence on the half-willing or unwilling and impossible intervention of the ruling congress party in Karnataka.
The struggle over SIR is therefore is not an electoral issue, but as a test of the country’s democratic foundations. The choices made by political parties, civil society organizations, and citizens in the coming years may determine how that larger contest unfolds.
Related:
Anti-SIR Activists Beware: A mere Residential Certificate does not satisfy SIR requirements
The Biopolitical Anatomy of Hindutva Fascism: Part II: SIR, EVMs and the Judiciary