Long & short of SIR: What happens when exclusion is prioritised over inclusion

In a recent article in The Indian Express, Yogendra Yadav and I defended the view that the SIR process is leading to mass disenfranchisement - at least 12 cr eligible voters (12% of India's estimated adult population) are likely to be left out of the final SIR lists. Confusion persists, however, on how this is happening.

Some critics of SIR argue that pre-SIR lists were fairly inclusive, but then, 13 cr persons were deleted. This claim appears to be consistent with the fact that pre-SIR lists more or less tally with adult-population estimates, state-wise. For all major states together, pre-SIR lists add up to 99% of the corresponding adult population (see chart). What about the deletions?

13 cr is the official number of names on 'ASDD lists' - ASDD being 'absentee, shifted, duplicate or deceased' in EC lingo. These lists are made by booth-level officers (BLOs), comprising mainly local teachers and anganwadi workers. SIR's draft list is essentially prepared by removing from the pre-SIR list all the names on the ASDD list. In other words, the first stage of SIR is an exclusion exercise.


In the second stage (when the draft list is revised), some names are added through Form 6, while others are deleted through Form 7, scrutiny of 'logical discrepancies', and so on.

Media focus on the '13 cr' figure is causing some confusion, by suggesting that the root of exclusion lies in ASDD lists. In fact, ground reports from several states (including a careful state-wide survey in Rajasthan) suggest that majority of ASDD deletions are legitimate. No doubt, many eligible voters are on the ASDD list by mistake or mischief. But nothing like 13 cr.

In that case, why is the size of SIR draft lists systematically far below adult-population estimates? In India as a whole, the shortfall is as large as 15% (see chart). The gap shrinks when final lists are prepared, but not much. Who are all these missing voters, and how did they end up being excluded?

Here is a plausible explanation. Pre-SIR lists were, in fact, far from inclusive. A significant fraction of the adult population was left out - up to 10% perhaps, judging from patchy evidence. But this was more or less balanced by the presence, on those lists, of a large number of 'surplus' names, like duplicates and names of persons who had died, or migrated. As a result, the pre-SIR lists were more or less in line with adult population counts, but this consistency was illusory: it masked the exclusion problem.

Then the ASDD exercise took place, and the surplus names were mostly removed, along with an unknown but large number of eligible voters. That is why SIR draft lists are well below population estimates. Remember, the draft lists are based on an exclusion exercise.

The failure to include eligible voters who were missing in the first place (especially young adults) could, in principle, have been repaired in the second stage through large-scale use of Form 6. Instead, EC continued to focus on exclusion, by demanding citizenship-related documents from two groups in the draft lists: those who were 'unmapped', and with 'logical discrepancies' in their mapping to the 2002-03 voter lists.

Beleaguered by this chaotic operation, BLOs had little time or energy to go from door to door and look for those left out. And even the use of Form 6 requires submission of onerous documents.

Special mention should be made of the possible mass exclusion of migrant workers. When a migrant worker is marked as 'Shifted', the largest category in ASDD lists, in their village of origin, there is no guarantee that they have been, or will be, enrolled at the destination point. And how is that supposed to happen when it requires documents a migrant worker may not have, like proof of local residence?

In short, eligible voters were left out of the final SIR lists in different ways. Some never made it to any list. Some were removed by mistake or mischief at the ASDD stage. Some were targeted through Form 7. Some were victims of unresolved 'logical discrepancies', or other mapping issues. Some were deemed 'Shifted' without being enrolled wherever they had shifted. In one way or another, huge numbers were left out.

Another way of looking at the situation is this. When the SIR exercise began in June 2025, the most important task was not to weed out surplus names but to include those left out in pre-SIR lists. Instead, EC focused strictly on weeding out in the first stage, and then embarked on a wholly unnecessary, tyrannical and exclusionary exercise of verifying citizenship. The ranks of the excluded swelled, instead of shrinking. And tremendous hardship was inflicted on the public.

This is not the first time that ordinary people have got shock treatment in the last 10 yrs. It also happened with demonetisation in 2016, Covid lockdowns in 2020-21, and the e-KYC crisis in 2024. Each time, the public paid a heavy price. This time, the damage also extends to the foundation of electoral democracy - the right to vote.