Overview
- A media investigation this week showed Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally logged at least 14 objections over about 10 months to decisions tied to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
- That reporting has triggered nationwide protests on Friday with dozens of demonstrators and opposition leaders detained and police using water cannon and barricades to disperse marches in multiple states.
- The Election Commission says the notes were routine parts of internal deliberation and that all final SIR decisions were taken unanimously by the three-member commission.
- Opposition parties and pressure groups are pursuing legal and parliamentary actions including impeachment notices, FIR requests, demands to restore pre-SIR rolls, and calls for an independent, judicially supervised audit of SIR records.
- The SIR is a nationwide voter-roll cleanup that critics say removed roughly 130 million names from draft lists, introduced extra declarations for new registrations, and raised concerns about centralised access to the electoral database and practical disenfranchisement of first-time and vulnerable voters.