SIR shifting burden on people to provide proof of citizenship

A mid protests over the implementation of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) which is rocking both houses of parliament, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has reassert edits power to verify if a person is a citizen or not while undertaking a country-wide, unprecedented voter registration exercise.

In a counter-affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, it has said that it is fully competent to require a person claiming citizenship by birth to produce relevant documents for inclusion in the electoral roll. In a first ever move, the burden of proving their citizenship with documentary proof during the voter registration, now in Bihar and next in the rest of India, has been shifted to the people by the ECI.

The ECI’s affidavit comes in response to a challenge by several opposition parties and others to hold a country-wide voter registration from scratch, starting with Bihar, which it ordered on June 24, 2025, calling it SIR, a term not found in either the regulations or the manuals governing voter registration. The petitioners have questioned the hurried nature, the timing and the process by which ECI has ordered the revision of voter lists in Bihar just before the due assembly elections.

They have also questioned the curtailed and differentiated list of documents that the ECI has mandated as proof from different sets of people in Bihar to prove their right to vote and citizenship. ECI has stood its ground on all counts against the petitioners. It has stuck to its logic that existing Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) cards issued up to January 2025, Aadhaar and ration cards would not be used for voter registration, despite the SC requesting it to do so.

The Commission has claimed that the Union government’s exclusive powers over the deter mination of citizenship are limited and authori ties such as the ECI, can also verify citizenship as per the Constitution.The ECI said that it is the people’s responsibil ity to prove their citizenship with documentary evidence, as asked for during the revision of the electoral roll across the country.

In its affidavit to the Supreme Court, the ECI has claimed that 94.68% of forms had been col lected. Neither did ECI disclose how many of these enumeration forms had been submitted without documentary evidence, which citizens would now have to approach the authorities over a short span of 30 days. ECI’s numbers in Bihar show that the BJP leads the pack for volunteers or booth-level agents who will help it carry out the revision.

BJP has 52,698 booth-level agents in Bihar, followed by Rashtriya Janata Dal with 47,506 agents, and Janata Dal with 35,799 agents. Congress trails the pack with 16,676 booth level agents. It may be added here that these agents are to assist the ECI in its SIR exercise.

By its sheer numerical advantage, the BJP is likely to gain political mileage in the process and the end exercise casts doubt on the transparency and fairness of the upcoming polls.