India Begins Controversial Voter Roll Overhaul Across 12 States

India has launched a three-month Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls across 12 states and territories, including populous regions like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, ahead of upcoming local elections. The Election Commission, supported by tens of thousands of officials and nearly half a million volunteers, aims to clean electoral rolls by assisting residents in completing enumeration forms, with the goal of removing duplicate or fraudulent entries. While the government and the Election Commission assert the exercise is necessary to prevent illegal immigrants from voting, critics and opposition parties, including the Trinamool Congress and DMK, warn that the revision could disenfranchise millions, particularly among marginalized communities and Muslims, and question the political motivations behind the timing of the process. The transgender community in West Bengal has expressed concerns over mismatches in identity documents and the exclusion of their government-issued transgender identity cards from the list of valid documents for the revision, raising fears about their voting rights. Previous revisions, such as the one in Bihar, resulted in the exclusion of millions of names, intensifying debates over potential wrongful removals of legitimate voters. The exercise has sparked significant political tensions and civil rights concerns about its impact on the democratic process in India.