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After the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar, which faced sharp criticisms from political parties and eventually the Supreme Court, the Election Commission of India (EC) has now announced a nationwide SIR, referred to herein as SIR 2.0. This exercise has been purported to be a paperless, people-friendly, and procedurally robust undertaking.
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With nearly one billion voter entries, a digital approach is not only inevitable but essential. The electoral roll is no longer a static, State-wise record; it is a dynamic national database whose precision defines the integrity of India’s elections. Yet, despite judicial caution, one persistent issue remains unresolved — the double or multiple listing of a single voter.
This problem, affecting countless citizens who shift residences, is not about fraud but rather procedural lapses that erode confidence in the system. A recent case involving a voter (Prashant Kishor), whose name appears in both the Bihar and West Bengal rolls, illustrates the flaw. While the SIR in West Bengal is yet to begin, such duplication defeats the core purpose of the Bihar exercise — ensuring that no voter listed in Bihar remains enrolled elsewhere. It questions the credibility of the SIR process and undermines trust in the voter database.
Governing duplicate entries
Under the Representation of the People (RP) Act, 1950, duplicate entries technically constitute a violation, though such lapses are rarely intentional. Many law-abiding citizens, simply by shifting residence, unintentionally find themselves in breach of the Act through no fault of their own. This underscores the urgent need for a systematic, technology-driven correction mechanism within the EC’s digital framework to make SIR 2.0 robust, reliable, and error-free.
The RP Act, 1950, defines the framework for maintaining integrity of electoral rolls and preventing duplication. Under Section 22(b) of the Act, if a voter changes residence within the same constituency, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) should transpose the entry to the appropriate part of the roll. When a voter moves to another constituency, Section 23(2) governs inclusion in the new roll. It mandates that the ERO, if satisfied that the applicant is entitled to be registered, shall direct inclusion of the applicant’s name in the new roll. The section further requires that if the applicant is already registered in the roll of another constituency, the concerned ERO must inform the officer of that constituency, who shall then strike off the applicant’s name from that roll.
To ensure the uniqueness of every voter’s registration, Sections 17 and 18 explicitly prohibit multiple registrations — no person may be listed in more than one constituency, or more than once in the same constituency. Violations constitute an offence under electoral law. Duplication often occurs when a voter’s name is added at a new place of residence but not simultaneously deleted from the previous one.
In essence, the Act places the primary responsibility on the EROs to ensure that transposition, inclusion, and deletion are carried out accurately, promptly, and simultaneously. This process is crucial in preventing duplicate registration and ensuring the credibility, transparency, and integrity of the national electoral database.
The EC has consolidated the above provisions related to change of residence and correction of voter details in Form 8, used for transposition or correction of entries. A change of address request may fall under four categories: (I) No change in constituency or polling station, (II) No change in constituency but a change in polling station, (III) Change in constituency within the same State, and (IV) Change in both constituency and State. The most frequent cause of double entries arises in Type IV cases, where a voter relocates to another State. The new entry may either retain the same EPIC (Electors Photo Identity Card) number or generate a new one. For instance, Bihar voter (Prashant Kishor)’s double entry involves different EPICs, whereas the author has encountered several cases where both entries shared the same EPIC.
In such situations, accountability for failing to delete the old entry lies squarely with the concerned EROs, whose prompt coordination was essential to prevent duplication in the national electoral roll. Another source of duplication arises when a voter uses Form 6 —meant for new inclusion without declaring the existence of a registration elsewhere. A false declaration constitutes a legal violation, with accountability shared by both the voter and the officials responsible for verification.
Decoding the procedure
The backbone of India’s electoral roll is ECINet — a fully digital, nationwide system managed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune. With records of nearly one billion voters, ECINet ranks among the world’s largest dynamic databases. Each voter is identified by a unique EPIC number, ensuring a single verifiable entry per individual. ECINet can detect duplicates, flag inconsistencies, and facilitate corrections through authorised verification. It should also be extended to incorporate a voter’s update history for complete traceability.
The EC and C-DAC deserve credit for developing robust search and verification APIs that enable efficient detection of duplicates. Ideally, any double entry should automatically trigger an alert for review and deletion upon verification. With such tools available, there is little justification for the persistence of duplicate records. Whether SIR is paper-based or paperless, the real challenge lies in database accuracy and administrative responsiveness. In a digital framework, detection and deletion should be instantaneous.
Ultimately, most cases of duplicate entries stem from the failure to delete older records, whether linked to the same or different EPIC number. This recurring problem reflects not a technological shortcoming but an administrative lapse — a failure of timely coordination and accountability within the electoral machinery.
The way forward
SIR 2.0 must not degenerate into another bureaucratic ritual. India cannot afford another exercise mired in procedural inertia. The gaps are administrative, not technological. ECINet already holds the potential and should be further enhanced through seamless integration with Aadhaar, the only credible pan-India database for independent verification.
Before SIR 2.0 begins, electoral data must be cleaned, duplicates flagged, and deleted. With proper use of technology, this can become a trust revolution — one where transparency, verification, and integrity are built into the system. The focus must shift decisively to software-led validation, digital audit trails, and real-time corrections. The ECINet should function as a reliable public utility — intuitive, glitch-free, and responsive. A real-time dispute resolution mechanism is needed to replace long queues and unanswered complaints.
With a transparent, self-correcting feedback system in place, future SIRs will be unnecessary and electoral rolls will stay perpetually accurate, updated, and verifiable. Only then can India move from ‘verification by ritual’ to ‘verification by design’.
Rajeev Kumar is a former professor of computer science at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, BITS Pilani, and JNU, and a former scientist at DRDO and DST.
Published – November 05, 2025 08:30 am IST
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