Amidst the questions being raised regarding Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Election Commission has been arguing that such process of special revision of voter list has been adopted earlier also.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders have also said on many occasions that the process like SIR has been happening even during the Congress rule.
However, there are several differences between the revision conducted in 2003 and the ongoing SIR process in 2025.
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) had raised the issue of difference between these two processes before the Supreme Court during the hearing of a petition challenging the SIR in Bihar.
ADR is among the petitioners who have challenged the SIR in Bihar.
The organization told the court that even though the Election Commission is basing the SIR of 2025 on the revision done in 2003, there are significant differences in the guidelines of the two processes.
According to ADR, the 2003 process cannot be used as a precedent for the 2025 SIR.
ADR says the 2003 guidelines show that the entire intensive revision process took more than six months.
The process of consolidation of voter lists was then to be completed by the end of June 2002, printing of primary voter lists was to take place in July and door-to-door verification was to take place from July to August.
After this, about two months were given to prepare the draft roll and the publication of the final voter list was confirmed on 6 January 2003.
In contrast, the SIR for 2025 was completed in just three months. It was announced on 24 June, enumeration forms were submitted from 25 June to 26 July, the draft roll was published on 1 August, objections were taken till 1 September and the final roll was published on 30 September.
The SIR of 2025 was completed on September 30, while Bihar Assembly elections were scheduled to be held in two phases on November 6 and 11.
Thus, a comparison of the available guidelines and time frames shows clear differences between the 2003 and 2025 processes.
According to the ADR, in the 2003 revision, the main responsibility for including names in the voter list and updating the voter data rested with the enumerators (those who collect the data).
The organization says that in the 2025 SIR, this responsibility has largely been put on the voters. They have to fill and submit the enumeration form themselves and in case of non-submission of the form, their name may not be included in the voter list.
Social and political activist Yogendra Yadav also believes that the process of 2003 was quite different from now.
He says, "The first lie of the Election Commission is that in 2003, all the voters had filled the enumeration forms. But the guidelines of 2003 tell a different story. In 2003, no enumeration form was made to be filled by any voter. In those days, the local representative of the Election Commission used to be an enumerator instead of a BLO. He was instructed to go door-to-door and amend the old voter list."
Yogendra Yadav says that at that time the revised list was written afresh and it was signed by the head of the family.
He says, "For the common voter, there was no form, no time limit, and no fear of automatically removing the name from the list if the form is not filled."
Citing para 12 of the 2003 guidelines, the ADR said that at that time the enumerators had to go door-to-door and update the voters' data. At the same time, under Para 15, the list of houses, map of the concerned area and primary voter list were provided to the enumerator.
The responsibility of supervisors was fixed to monitor their work. They also had to do random checking of at least 25 percent of the work.
Yogendra Yadav says that it was clearly written in the old guidelines that the job of the enumerator is not to check the citizenship of a person.
He told that at that time proof of citizenship could be asked only in two situations. The first situation was when an area was declared a 'foreigner dominated area' by the state government. In such an area, if a new person came to get a Voter I-card made and no member of his family already had the right to vote, then only his citizenship could be checked.
The second situation was when a written complaint was made against a person that he was not a citizen of India.
In such a situation, the person making the complaint had to prove that the person concerned is a foreigner.
According to Yogendra Yadav, apart from these two situations, the citizenship of a person was not checked and his name could not be removed from the voter list on the basis of citizenship alone.
He also said that in the old guidelines it was said to give importance to the names already registered in the voter list.
Yadav alleges that this time the Election Commission has taken upon itself the responsibility of identifying foreign nationals.
According to him, in the previous process this responsibility was of the government and not of the Election Commission.
A booklet released by 'Vote for Democracy' and 'Citizens for Justice and Peace' also points out the differences between the SIR process of 2003 and 2025-26.
According to the booklet, the 2003 guidelines had a provision for door-to-door verification based on the existing voter list.
The voter list of that time and the Electronic Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPI) were also made the basis of the process.
"At that time, both the EPIC number of the voter card and the voter ID card were accepted as valid documents. But this is no longer the case," the booklet said.
According to the booklet, then those whose names were struck off from the voter list were not asked to declare that they had never been a voter.
In addition, before the launch of SIR in 2003, the work of inventorying and mapping houses in the concerned area was also done.
According to Vote for Democracy and Citizens for Justice and Peace, in the 2025-26 process the Election Commission did not include the Voter ID card in the list of 11 documents through which voters could prove their eligibility.
The organization says that the inclusion of Voter ID card in this list was opposed even in the Supreme Court.
The ADR also mentioned four documents required to prove citizenship in 2003.
These included National Register of Citizens (NRC), citizenship certificate issued by the competent authority, valid passport issued by the Government of India and birth certificate.
Yogendra Yadav says that in 2003, not only were most of the documents asked for, but they were asked from some people.
He said, "Documents were asked only from those people who were coming from another state and getting their entire family voted for the first time. Or from those who were suspected of not declaring their age correctly or their usual residence was wrong. That means last time, barring a few exceptions, no documents were asked from anyone."
On the contrary, in the SIR being conducted this time, it came to light that every person has to provide some document to prove his eligibility.
For this, one had to either provide proof of one's name being in the voter list of 2003 or submit any one of the 11 documents.
While arguing in the Supreme Court, ADR had also said that under the 2003 guidelines, the final voter list was to be published only after the claims and objections were settled.
Yogendra Yadav says that the Election Commission's claim that it is repeating the process of 2003 intensive review in SIR is false.
