Maintaining integrity in Indian polls through SIR, other measures

September 21, 2025

Abhishek Vij

Assembly elections are coming up in bihar. for this, the election commission has launched a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) campaign. The first report stated that 6.5 million voters were invalid. Some of these voters have passed away or moved out of state; their names will now be removed. One of the 11 documents required for verification was later added by the Supreme Court to this list.

This issue is causing considerable controversy. It is being said that if SIR is conducted nationwide, many more voters will be required to show their credentials. In fact, half of the voters in the country are already authentic; they will not have to provide any new documents because those whose names were included in the list between 2000 and 2004 were already authenticated. Now, the authenticity of the new voters who have been added must be verified.

The Election Commission has now further clarified that the verification will not be limited to Bihar; the SIR campaign will now be conducted nationwide. Parents of every voter born after 1987 will be required to provide documents to validate their vote. In fact, those who wish to become new voters, whether after reaching voting age or relocating from another state, will be required to fill out a registration form. They will be required to provide their birth certificate. Their parents will also be required to provide their citizenship documents. With this, the Election Commission is aiming to make Indian elections fairer. It wants to make voter lists more controversy-free. Just before the Bihar elections, the Election Commission issued new guidelines.

These guidelines state that although the election dates have not yet been announced in Bihar, a new initiative is being undertaken to verify the authenticity of voters. EVMs will now feature color photographs of candidates, as opposed to black and white. After Bihar, this experiment will be implemented in other states as well.

The benefit of this will be that millions of rural and illiterate voters in India will find it easier to recognize the faces of their candidates. Furthermore, their serial numbers will be given greater prominence, and their font size will be larger so that voters can better recognize them. The Election Commission’s objective is to make Indian elections more democratic, fair, and simple.

Recently, Bihar’s opposition, led by Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav, launched a campaign criticizing the fairness of the electoral process with the slogan “Vote Chor Gaddi Chhod.” The main argument in this paragraph is that the Election Commission is responding to such criticism by pursuing at least 28 reforms to address integrity and transparency.

While some reforms are complete and others are ongoing, criticism focuses on the timing of the SIR program ahead of Bihar’s elections. The opposition alleges that this benefits the incumbent government. In response, the Commission maintains that these reforms were initiated months ago and are now being implemented. Although criticism is understandable, questioning the neutrality of the Election Commission, which operates within the judicial