Presumed ineligible: On the Election Commission of India’s SIR process

Not one eligible elector should be left out of the electoral rolls. This statement appears in nearly every document released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) as part of the ongoing SIR process , and the Supreme Court of India, which is hearing petitions challenging the SIR, has also used this refrain. Yet, according to an ECI counter-affidavit filed in the Court, by early September 2026, out of more than 38 lakh appeals submitted to SIR appellate tribunals in West Bengal, just over 1,22,000 appeals were disposed of (a disposal rate of just 3.2%) and 1,13,943 electors were added back to the rolls (an inclusion rate of nearly 93%). This suggests that the claims/corrections phase in the West Bengal SIR — during which judicial officers deployed for verification deemed 27 lakh of the 60 lakh electors flagged for “logical discrepancies” to be ineligible — was deeply flawed.