As the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal has concluded and assembly elections are only days away, about 90 lakh names have been removed from the voter lists. About 57% of them are from districts bordering Bangladesh. According to media reports, Muslims in several districts are disproportionately affected. Exclusions highlighted in the media include a former justice of the Calcutta high court, the 88-year-old grandson of Nandalal Bose who decorated the original copy of the Constitution, a decorated Indian Air Force veteran, and a Kargil war veteran, among many others. Without going into the legality of whether the Election Commission of India (ECI) was empowered to conduct SIR in the manner it is being conducted, we would have been happy if ECI had succeeded in its avowed motto of ‘no voter to be left behind.’Till now, SIR has been completed in nine major states viz. Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Combined with special revision in Assam, the eligible population covered so far has been more than 63% of persons above 18 years, is quite substantial and diversified. About 45 million names were deleted on account of them having been ‘absentee’, ‘shifted’, or ‘missing’, as per the draft rolls in the nine SIR states. Moreover, in the final rolls, the gap between the expected eligible citizens and the number of registered electors in these 10 states is around 70 million. If a similar trend persists in the remaining states also, the gap for all-India is likely to become more than 110 million.As this significant gap can largely be attributed to deletion of absentees, shifted and missing voters, and logical discrepancies, in this article we propose to discuss whether any eligible citizen, as enshrined in section 19 of Representation of the People Act 1950 (RPA), can be deprived from registration in the electoral rolls.Recapitulation of statutory provisionsIn the SIR, electors whose filled-in enumeration forms were not submitted, have been excluded from the draft rolls, presuming them to have shifted elsewhere without intent to return. The ‘absentee’ or ‘shifted’ status hinges on the ordinary residence. Any question as to where a person is ordinarily resident at the relevant time has to be determined with reference to several facts and is to such rules as may be made in this behalf. However, neither the Union government nor the ECI have made any rules defining it. Also read: The ECI Must Know that Mere Migration Does Not Render a Voter RootlessThe procedure currently followed is based on the judgement of the Gauhati high court in the Manmohan Singh case, which defined the ‘Ordinary Resident’ to mean a usual and normal resident of that place, permanent in character, not temporary or casual and for a considerable time. It is the place where one habitually sleeps at night. The Supreme Court has also held that the person has to have an intention to stay at that place for a considerably long time.RPA’s Section 20(1A) also stipulates that persons absenting themselves temporarily from their place of ordinary residence shall not, by reason thereof, cease to be ordinarily resident therein. Accordingly, the ECI manual stipulates that the temporary absence from place of ordinary residence will not deprive a person of the qualification of ordinary residence, if they possess the ability to return and has intention to return to that place.Exclusion from draft rollsIn fact, the exclusion of absentee or shifted persons was built into the SIR, as their names were not to be included in the draft rolls. Most of the persons who were absent or temporarily shifted, albeit otherwise ordinarily resident of that constituency, may not have been available to receive the forms. Most of them may not have been in a position to come back immediately from their current place of work or residence to submit required documents to the BLO. It was quite a demand to expect a person, particularly poor migrant workers, to travel to their home town or village. Most of them may have been very poor to afford travel to their place where they were registered as voters.Though the facility for online uploading of forms and documents was provided by ECI, but the question is how many such migrants are sufficiently digitally literate to avail themselves of it. Moreover, even in case of online uploading, the BLO is to verify the documents by visiting the household. This makes the facility ab initio redundant for the absentee or temporarily shifted voter. Hence, all such electors whose names were not included in the draft rolls, as their filled-in forms were not returned by the stipulated dates, did not get any opportunity to be heard in person under Section 22 of the RPA. Whether the statutory rights of these persons can be curtailed in SIR is to be addressed in the judicial fora. The only option before these people is now to apply afresh for their inclusion in electoral roll of the same constituency from where it had been deleted in SIR. Prima facie it appears that such absentee or temporarily shifted persons, even with an intention to come back to their village or town, cannot enter their last address given in the electoral rolls because they are not at present residing there. Simultaneously, they cannot register at a place where they are staying at present because they do not intend to reside there permanently – the criterion laid down by the court and followed by the ECI in determining the ordinary residence. Also read: At Macro Level, Voters Match Population Projections. But There Are Vast Disparities Across StatesIt is also ironic that on one hand, people like overseas electors are permitted to be registered at the address given in their passport even when they are residing abroad, and on the other, a large number of Indians are being deprived of the same owing to being absentee or having shifted even though are very much in the country. The former is an obvious instance of practical wisdom and the legislative spirit that ‘ordinary residence’ should refer to a person’s permanent or habitual home where they intend to return, even if not residing there at the time of SIR. Logical discrepancyDeletion owing to logical discrepancy, i.e. unusually small age gaps between family members, multiple entries linked to same parentage, among others, is another precarious aspect of the present SIR. With more than 11% births being non-institutional even in 2019-21 triennium as per NFHS-5, combined with the fact that even in 2025, proportion of the adult population in the country for which highest educational attainment is less than Class 8 was 57.9% (65.4% rural, 42.7% urban) as per Periodic Labour Force Survey-2025; such typographical mistakes and inconsistencies are nothing out of ordinary.Are available technical tools like biometrics linked with Aadhaar not sufficient to confirm identity? Disqualification for registration in electoral rolls are enumerated in Section 16 of the RPA. It is obvious that a mere inconsistency in the records, even if true, does not operate to fulfil the statutory requirement stipulated therein. Exclusion on the pretext of such logical discrepancies to eligible citizens may well be considered a form of violence on India’s own citizens. While details regarding the number of deletions of ‘foreigners’ is still awaited, it is now clear that a large number of eligible citizens in India may be excluded from the final electoral rolls. Many of them have become victims of the process. SIR appears to have become an exercise in exclusion rather than inclusion. The only challenge now before the civil society is how to bring these citizens back into the fold of representative participation. The possibility of the argument of logical discrepancies being a thin wedge to exclude people from availing themselves of social benefit schemes like the National Food Security Act cannot be ruled out altogether. Sanjay Kumar retired as Additional Director General of the the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation.N. K. Sharma retired as Director General of the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation.Siraj Hussain is former Union Agriculture Secretary.