EC quietly deletes Citizenship Act reference from draft voter roll order issued in haste

In a rare glimpse into internal deliberations at the Election Commission of India, documents reveal that a key reference linking a nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to the Citizenship Act was removed just before the order was made public — even as one of the Commissioners warned against potential harassment of genuine voters.

On June 24, the Commission announced a sweeping revision drive across the country, beginning with Bihar. The same day, Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu recorded a note in the draft order, cautioning that the verification process — which requires all voters to submit enumeration forms and certain categories to furnish additional eligibility documents — must not burden or intimidate vulnerable groups.

“Care should be taken that genuine voters/citizens, particularly old, sick, PwD, poor and other vulnerable groups do not feel harassed and are facilitated,” Sandhu wrote in the file.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar approved the draft the same day — notably, via WhatsApp, underscoring the urgency surrounding the order.

A key sentence removed

The initial draft contained a direct justification linking the revision exercise to amendments made to the Citizenship Act in 2003, noting that no such intensive revision had taken place since the changes came into force in 2004.

It stated: “The Commission has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only persons who are citizens… and the Citizenship Act underwent a significant amendment in 2004 and thereafter no intensive revision has been conducted across the country.”

But in the final order issued publicly on the evening of June 24, this reference had disappeared.

Instead, Paragraph 8 cited only Article 326 of the Constitution and ended abruptly with a semicolon — an incomplete sentence that remains unexplained.

Since the order’s release, the Election Commission has not commented on the missing reference or the broken line. Queries sent by The Indian Express on November 28 to the EC spokesperson and to Commissioner Sandhu received no response.

Sandhu’s caution survives — without attribution

While the Citizenship Act reference vanished, Sandhu’s warning did surface — nearly verbatim — in Paragraph 13 of the final directive. The order instructs state officials to ensure vulnerable electors are “not harassed” and may be assisted by volunteers.

However, one detail from Sandhu’s original note did not make it into the final text: the emphasis on “citizens.”

Silence and scrutiny

The absence of clarification on the altered language — particularly the removed reference to citizenship law — has raised questions about the nature of internal debate within the Commission and the legal framing of the verification exercise.

With the nationwide revision now underway and the clock ticking toward the July 25, 2025 submission deadline, the incomplete sentence in the Commission’s landmark order hangs in the air — unanswered and untouched.

Whether it was an editing oversight, a legal rethink, or a deliberate step back from politically sensitive ground remains known only to those inside the room.