Three United Nations-appointed experts have written to the Centre expressing concerns over alleged discrimination towards minorities during the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, particularly in West Bengal, and seeking information on the steps taken to ensure the process aligns with India’s obligations under international human rights law.
The UN’s Special Rapporteurs on minority issues, on promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and on freedom of religion or belief — Nicolas Levrat, Irene Khan and Nazila Ghanea respectively —wrote to the government on May 1. They sought the government’s comments on allegations that Bengali and Muslim electors were targeted during the SIR and asked for details of steps taken to ensure that eligible voters were not prevented from participating in the 2026 Assembly polls.
The EC’s SIR exercise, which broke from the practice of the past 20 years to prepare the rolls afresh instead of updating them, was upheld by the Supreme Court in May this year. Dismissing the petitions challenging the legality of SIR, the court ruled that the EC had the power to conduct the exercise. The court said the exercise was “intended to secure the constitutional mandate of free and fair elections by ensuring that the roll on which the election rests is accurate and reliable”.
“We are particularly concerned by the way in which the SIR process has been conducted, notably the reported removal of millions of voters’ names from electoral rolls, potentially affecting a great number of Muslims and persons of Bengali descent, as well as other minorities, who may be wrongfully excluded from the updated electoral rolls because of their historical and continuing treatment as foreigners and illegal immigrants, notably in West Bengal,” the letter states.
Emails sent to the spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs and the EC did not elicit a response.
The letter comes after a group of academics, the Independent Panel for Monitoring Indian Elections, submitted complaints regarding the SIR exercise to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in August 2025 and April 2026. The panel comprises Prof Neera Chandhoke, a Distinguished Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Equity Studies, Dr Thomas Daffern, a historian and director of the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy and Dr Harish Karnick, a former IIT-Kanpur professor.
The coordinator of the independent panel, retired IAS officer M G Devasahyam, said the group recently received a copy of the letter, which was made public by the Special Rapporteurs after 60 days, as per their practice.
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“Affected individuals of the second phase [of SIR] report being wrongfully excluded despite having provided valid identification. Muslim voters were reportedly disproportionately impacted by the SIR process… Minor spelling inconsistencies in documents – reportedly common across India due to administrative challenges – are allegedly used as a pretext for the deletion of voter names,” the letter states.
On the SIR exercise in Bihar, the letter says it reportedly caused alarm over potential large-scale disenfranchisement and denationalisation, particularly of Muslims and other minorities. “Further concerns have been raised by the alleged use of an AI-driven system that flagged ‘irregularities’ in voter data, raising concerns about transparency, errors, and potential bias,” the letter states.
It also flags concerns over statements made by political and government officials in the context of the SIR.
“In the context of the SIR process, statements were reportedly made by politicians and senior public figures of the Government, which appear to reflect and reinforce a pattern of discriminatory rhetoric directed at Muslim, Bengali, and other minority communities. Senior Government officials, including the Union Home Minister, have reportedly publicly framed the deletion of voter names as targeting ‘illegal Bangladeshi immigrants’ — rhetoric that conflates legitimate Indian Muslim citizens with foreign nationals…”
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“It is also reported that, before Parliament, the Home Minister framed the State-administered electoral process in terms of the removal of a religious community, expressed through the policy formula ‘Detect, Delete and Deport’,” the letter states.
The EC started the SIR in Bihar in June last year and then followed it up in 10 states and three UTs, including West Bengal, from October 2025. In the case of West Bengal, a series of unprecedented steps taken by the EC on orders of the Supreme Court led to 27 lakh electors being deleted and unable to cast their votes in the April 2026 Assembly polls, even as their appeals are pending with tribunals.
The Special Rapporteurs’ letter states: “While we do not wish to prejudge the accuracy of these allegations, and having regard to the repeated concerns expressed by the Special Procedures over the past years, we express concern about the fact that the above-mentioned allegation may amount to serious violations of multiple human rights obligations.”
They wrote that the statements of senior government figures regarding the SIR could amount to incitement to discrimination, as per the meaning under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that India ratified in 1979.
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They also cited previous Special Rapporteurs raising concerns over the National Register of Citizens with the government in 2018.
