🔍 Are We Compromising Transparency in Our Electoral Process?

As Bihar gears up for elections, the Election Commission of India has launched a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls. At face value, it’s a necessary and data-driven effort to remove ghost entries, eliminate duplicate voters, and update migration-related changes. But how this exercise is being implemented has raised serious questions about transparency, accessibility, and fairness.

Here are some critical concerns that deserve public attention:

✅ Documentation barriers: Many legitimate voters in Bihar, particularly in rural and underprivileged communities, lack birth certificates or formal ID documents. This isn’t due to voter negligence—but due to systemic gaps in civil registration and awareness. Denying them the right to vote would be punishing citizens for the State's own failings.

✅ Opaque process: No real-time tracking system exists for people to check whether their requests to be added to the roll have been accepted or rejected. Without transparency, trust erodes.

✅ Bias and decentralization risks: The exercise is largely being conducted by Booth Level Officers (BLOs), who may be embedded in local political or social hierarchies—raising fears of arbitrary exclusions.

✅ Tight timelines = more errors: Compressing such a massive exercise into a short window risks both inclusion errors (illegitimate voters) and exclusion errors (genuine voters being left out).

✅ Data deletion directive: Even more concerning, a recent ECI order allows for CCTV and photo records of polling booths to be deleted after just 45 days, down from the earlier 3-month to 1-year period. This limits public scrutiny and reduces accountability.

🔴 In a democracy, legitimacy flows from trust in the electoral process. That trust is built not only on free and fair elections—but on the transparency of how those elections are prepared and conducted.

It’s imperative that institutions like the Election Commission respond to growing public suspicion with openness, inclusion, and stronger digital transparency. Because in times like these, restoring faith in the system is not optional—it’s foundational to democracy.

🗳️ Let’s not allow administrative haste to override constitutional rights.

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