November 23, 2026

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THE MISSING MILLIONS

Among the boldest promises any nation has made to its people--and one that does India proud--is enshrined in Article 326 of the Constitution. It guarantees that elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies will be based on adult suffrage. Every Indian citizen aged 18 or above, unless disqualified under the Constitution or any law on specified grounds, is "entitled to be registered as a voter". "Entitled to be registered." In those four words lies a non-negotiable constitutional principle: the vote is not a favour that the State bestows on its citizens; it is a right they possess. To translate that right into reality, the framers created a constitutional guardian in Article 324, vesting the "superintendence, direction and control" of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections in the Election Commission of India (ECI). The commission is thus not a creature of ordinary law but an independent constitutional body with a twofold responsibility: to conduct free and fair elections and to ensure that every eligible citizen is on the electoral roll and able to exercise the right to vote. Enrolment, therefore, is not merely the citizen's entitlement, it is a constitutional obligation of the ECI. Seventy-six years on, the scale of that promise is staggering. India now has more than a billion citizens aged 18 and above, with 2026 estimates ranging from 1.008 billion to 1.017 billion, the largest electorate any democracy has known. On the eve of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, 979.8 million Indians were registered to vote, 7.4 per cent more than in 2019. By January 2025, the rolls had swelled to 991 million, prompting then chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar to declare that India would soon be "a nation of one billion voters".But India never quite got there. In June 2025, shortly before the Bihar assembly election, the ECI--now headed by Gyanesh Kumar--launched a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the state's electoral rolls. Subsequently, it extended the exercise to 30 more states and Union Territories. What was expected to take the country closer to the billion-voter milestone has instead produced a dramatic contraction. The draft rolls across these 31 jurisdictions saw an astounding 133.9 million names deleted. That is 14.1 per cent of their origi- nally listed 950.9 voters--roughly one in seven--and a number equivalent to the entire population of Bihar.To be fair, this is not the final deletion figure. On November 6, the ECI gave voters excluded from the rolls in seven states and UTs where the SIR is still under way another opportunity to have their names restored, without having to register afresh through Form 6. It has also initiated a Special Summary Revision in 22 of the 24 jurisdictions where final rolls have been published, allowing previously excluded voters to seek restoration and newly eligible citizens to enrol.However, based on current projections, the exercise could diminish the electorate of the 31 states/UTs to around 835 million, more than 100 million short of the 950.9 million pre-SIR electorate. No electoral revision in India's history has produced a contraction on this scale. Following the 2002-04 revision, for instance, the electorate grew from 619.5 million in 1999 to 671.5 million in 2004. The massive deletions have triggered protests from the

YOGI'S QUEST FOR A THIRD TERM

On 31NOVEMBER 7, DIWALI EVE, over 3 million diyas lit up 56 ghats along the Saryu river in Ayodhya for Deepotsav, a festival chief minister Yogi Adityanath started in 2017, his first year in office. Each edition has outdone the last, and the 10th one this time, where vicepresident C.P. Radhakrishnan was the chief guest, broke all past records for the number of diyas. The next morning was Diwali, and Yogi used the occasion to inaugurate his political pitch for the 2027 ass embly election. “Where devotees were once chased with lathis into the Saryu, millions of diyas are lit today,” he told the seers gathered here at Karsevakpuram, a reminder of the struggle to get the Ram temple built in Ayodhya. The celebrations served as a curtainraiser for the BJP and Yogi's bid for a third consecutive term in Uttar Pradesh, and the message was unequivocal: the party will not be lowering its Hindutva pitch. It is not just Yogi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has as much riding on the state. The MP from Varanasi opened a Rs 150 crore garment unit there in late October with Yogi by his side. Party leaders say he is keeping a close watch on the poll preparations. India's most populous state sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, and the road to a fourth term for the BJP in 2029 also runs through Lucknow.The newly organised state working committee is proof of the party's intentions. It runs to 712 names, beginning with Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh, party veteran Murli Manohar Joshi and Yogi, and going down to district functionaries from Meerut to Gorakhpur. When the committee met in Lucknow on October 30 to draw up the election blueprint, special invitee Union home minister Amit Shah likened the state government to the mythical “Angad's foot”, which no one could move, and offered the cadre a controversial sweetener: “If the BJP forms the government in UP, we'll implement the Uniform Civil Code.” Away from the stage, the harder work of revamping the state organisation is under way. Earlier UP campaigns were largely orchestrated by Shah and BJP election strategist Sunil Bansal. Bansal was elevated to national general secretary in 2022 and, following party president Nitin Nabin's reshuffle this August, assigned charge of West Bengal and Telangana. The UP brief has gone to Vinod Tawde, who is said to work closely with the PM. Party leaders hope his experience in Bihar, where the BJP is in power, will stand him in good stead. On the ground, the task rests with state president Pankaj Chaudhary and his 46member team, which includes more than 25 OBC (Other Backward Class) leaders. All six regional presidents have also been replaced.WINNABILITY QUOTIENTTeams led by Tawde have been assessing seats through the Purvanchal and Awadh regions for winnability. Work on about 125 seats (of the total 403 in the assembly) is over, say party sources, adding that legislators who fall short may not get a ticket. One telling signal came on October 6, when the eight BJP nominees for UP's Rajya Sabha byelections filed their papers. Seven retiring members, including a few heavyweights, did not feature in the new list. Replacements included OBC Morcha chief Prakash Pal, western UP regional incharge Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and state minister Dharampal Singh. All 10 candidates—eight from the BJP, two from the Samajwadi Party (SP)—were elected unopposed.The changes reflect the emphasis on caste and regional representation, but their implications run far deeper. Retiring the incumbents signals a willingness to take tough calls, and will have state BJP leaders on their toes, especially with speculation rife that a majority of the 255 sitting MLAs may be dropped. The recent Legislative Council election results seem to have come as a rude shock to the party. It won six of the 11 seats that went to the polls, but lost Lucknow Graduates' and both Varanasi seats. The losses in the PM's Lok Sabha constituency came despite Yogi, Chaudhary and other heavyweights leading the campaign. A review is now under way, and there is talk of dropping sitting MLAs in Varanasi's assembly seats.At the state executive meet, Shah also made a pointed appeal to set aside