The Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) recent decisions to address some of the anomalies of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) will only act as a temporary bandage on the entirely damaged vertebral column of India’s democratic body. The entire exercise needs to be scrapped if confidence has to be restored in Indian elections. Post-SIR voter lists are hardly clean. There are many media reports about deletions on account of logical discrepancies; contamination of electoral rolls due to inclusion of untraced voters, multiple registrations, gross misuse of Form 7 to delete voters, auto-filled forms filed up on behalf of local Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) without their knowledge and without any reason for deletion, allegations of manipulation of ECI Net and addition of absurd voter names among other things.The allegations in media reports are so serious and widespread that a vibrant democracy should deal with them with utmost urgency by scrapping the SIR. Presently resident versus ordinarily resident One of the most grave irregularities in the SIR was deletion of electors on account of the voters marked absentee/shifted.To even well-informed commentators, the ‘absentee/shifted to another address’ logic is quite tempting. However, the moot issue is whether such interpretation is correct in terms of statutes and ECI guidelines. Though exclusions on this account have been flagged, debated and disputed, the primary issue underlying this aspect has not attracted prominence in the public discourse it warranted. We have previously pointed out that Section 20(1A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, stipulates that a person absenting themselves temporarily from their place of ordinary residence shall not, just for that reason, cease to be ordinarily resident of that place. Also, para 8.3 of the Manual of Electoral Rolls, 2023, clearly states that temporary absence from one’s place of ordinary residence will not deprive them of the qualification of a resident, if they possess the intention and ability to return. Electors temporarily absent from their ordinary place of residence should not face exclusion from the electoral roll solely on account of temporary absence. Let us take an example of a government employee who was staying in government accommodation in Lucknow and was registered as an elector there. He is subsequently transferred to Delhi. It is well known that government employees face frequent transfers. If he intends to return to Lucknow, there is no justification to delete his name from Lucknow’s voter list. There are innumerable instances where citizens move to another place for education, employment, business or any other reason, and would like to retain their vote at the original place.If current residence becomes the requirement for inclusion in the voter list, millions of people who move from place to place for these reasons will be faced with frequent deletions. This would be true even for All-India and Central Civil Services whose average tenures are known to be as low as 16 months. We know many officers and even judges would like to continue as voters at the original place where their vote was registered. The status of students, married women, nomadic population, slum-dwellers and poor migrant workers becomes quite precarious as soon as these two i.e. ordinarily resident and currently resident, are treated in an identical fashion. In the ECI guidelines and regulations, no time limit of temporary absence is stipulated after which an elector forfeits their right to remain in the voter list. The only criterion is whether they have the intention and capability to return. It is likely that the ECI fully recognised that absentee voters residing outside their original constituency on account of service, business, education or other reasons are entitled to have their names included in the voter rolls of that constituency and should not have been deleted from draft roll. This is why the ECI and CEO Haryana issued an advertisement on August 5, 2026 in The Indian Express, clarifying this exact position and inviting such voters to have their names included by filling Form 6.ECI backtracksTo facilitate enrolment of eligible electors, the commission directed, on October 15, 2026, that the existing electoral rolls shall be revised by conducting a Special Summary Revision (SSR) where the SIR is over. The problematic declaration in Form 6, that applicants must declare whether their parents or grandparents appeared in the previous SIR, has been removed.Earlier, Form 6 was used for registration of first-time electors as well as for shifting from one constituency to another, while Form 8 was for correction of particulars entered in the electoral rolls. However, after the 2022 amendments, Form 6 is being used only for the registration of first-time electors. The amended Form 8 is for shifting of residence within or across constituencies as well as correction of entries in the roll. ConclusionHence, merely permitting such electors to submit Form 6 even without ancestral details, may not achieve the intended objective of no-voter-left-behind, unless the confusion regarding ordinary residence is also addressed.The only way to reinstate the voting rights of deleted voters of this category is to revert to pre-SIR voting lists. If a fresh SIR is to be conducted in a constituency or a part of it – where the ECI thinks it is needed for reasons to be notified – the ECI must reach an all-party consensus about the methodology of SIR (as in case of Model Code of Conduct). A fresh exercise in limited geography should not be done hurriedly. It should be carried out over a year so that post-SIR voter lists do not have innumerable mistakes, like the ones being highlighted in the current SIRs, for example here, here and here.In the meantime, the Union government must advise states to restore welfare benefits to those whose names have been deleted.There is no other way to restore confidence of Indian citizens and global observers in the integrity of Indian electoral democracy.N.K. Sharma and Sanjay Kumar retired as Director General and Additional Director General respectively from the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation. Siraj Hussain is former Union Agriculture Secretary.