Integrity is crucial for SIR

The Election Commission's decision to extend the deadline for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in nine states and three Union Territories is a tacit admission that the exercise has been less than ideal.

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For weeks, opposition parties have argued that the schedule was impossibly crammed. The one-week extension concedes that the objection had merit. The question now is whether an extra week is enough to complete what is nothing short of a gargantuan national task. The numbers alone are staggering. Revising and verifying over 500 million entries on electoral rolls cannot be done in a hurry without compromising accuracy. The Commission insists that the SIR has been proceeding uninterruptedly and that the revised dates will be met. It has even cited the example of Bihar. That claim may carry a grain of truth, but it glosses over a critical reality: the outcomes in Bihar were too modest to justify the frenetic pace of the revision or the enormous effort expended by ground-level staff.