Summary
In an Indian Express column on 24 October 2026, economist Surjit S. Bhalla disputed claims that the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision wrongly removed 10 to 14 crore voters. Using the nine States with final rolls, he estimates that genuine wrongful exclusion is about 1 crore once young people who never registered and long-standing non-registrants are accounted for.
Jean Drèze and Yogendra Yadav had argued on 20 October that the number missing nationally is closer to 14 crore and that the process lacked due process. Bhalla rejects the larger figures but criticises the Commission for haste, paperwork demands, discrepancy rules that fell hardest on some communities and its failure to publish deletion data.
Both sides depend on a number the Commission has not released.
WHY IT MATTERS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS
Bhalla's 24 October 2026 column added a detailed counter-estimate to the national dispute over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, as opposition protests continue and the Commission has yet to publish deletion data by reason, State and booth.
Standard News
The Missing Number
The argument over India's electoral rolls has become a fight between two numbers. Protesters say 13 crore votes were deleted and Jean Drèze and Yogendra Yadav estimate about 14 crore eligible adults missing nationally.
Economist Surjit Bhalla puts the wrongful exclusion at about 1 crore. Both cannot be right and neither can be checked, because the Election Commission has not published the data that would settle it.
The case for the smaller number Bhalla's argument starts with a fair point.
In every democracy where registration is voluntary, electoral rolls are smaller than the adult population. By his figures, 4-7% of eligible Canadians, 11-14% of Britons and about a quarter of American voting-age citizens are not registered and no one calls that disenfranchisement. Using the nine States with final rolls, he calculates, by his own method:
- 59.9 crore adults against 52.8 crore names, a gap of 7.1 crore; - about 5.2 crore of that gap is young people who never registered (by 2024 ECI rolls, four in ten young adults in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were unregistered), plus older non-registrants, about 6.1 crore in all; - that leaves an expected roll of 53.8 crore against the final 52.8 crore, so about 1 crore wrongly excluded. He adds that the old rolls were bloated, with about 5 crore more names than a clean roll would hold, made up of the dead, people who had moved and duplicates. Removing them was legitimate.
The case for the larger harm Drèze and Yadav's argument does not depend only on totals.
It concerns how names were removed. They say "logical discrepancy" checks flagged voters without proper notice and hearing, as Rule 18 of the Registration of Electors Rules requires. Deletions fell disproportionately in some districts, such as Malda and Murshidabad.
In West Bengal, according to reports, most of the roughly 34 lakh appeals were not heard before polling. A voter wrongly removed whose appeal is heard after the election has still lost that vote. On this view, even Bhalla's 1 crore is a very large number of people.
It is around 60 lakh in West Bengal alone, by his own estimate.
Where this leaves us TAN's position is that the dispute cannot be resolved by arithmetic and that the remedy lies with the Election Commission. Bhalla's benchmark is a serious answer to inflated slogans. Drèze and Yadav's concern about process is a serious answer to complacency. Both are reasoning in the absence of the one dataset that matters: deletions by reason, by State and by booth. The Commission should publish that data and make sure appeals are heard before polling day. Until it does, every estimate, large or small, is an argument about a number only the Commission holds. Bhalla himself notes that an umpire who will not explain invites the charge of bias.
Quick Facts
Key numbers & takeaways — revise these first
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Bhalla's estimate covers nine States with final SIR rolls (Bihar plus eight second-phase States), home to about three in five Indian adults.
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In those States, by Bhalla's figures: 59.9 crore adults and 52.8 crore names on final rolls, a gap of 7.1 crore (12%).
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His adjustment for normal non-registration: 5.2 crore unregistered young adults plus 1.5% of adults for older non-registrants, about 6.1 crore in all.
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His result: an expected roll of 53.8 crore against a final roll of 52.8 crore, implying about 1 crore wrongly excluded.
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Drèze and Yadav (Indian Express, 20 October 2026) estimated well over 10 crore missing, about 14 crore nationally.
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Article 326 sets three conditions for inclusion on the roll: Indian citizenship, age 18 and ordinary residence.
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Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, Rule 18: notice and an opportunity to be heard before a name is deleted on objection.
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The 2023 law on appointing the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners replaced the Chief Justice on the selection panel with a Union Cabinet Minister.
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The Election Commission has not published a national post-SIR roll or deletions by reason, State and booth.
Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.
Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:
Bhalla's benchmark arithmetic in full: how 7.1 crore missing names become an estimated 1 crore wrongful exclusions.
The Drèze-Yadav case built at full strength: why process failures and unheard appeals matter even if the total is smaller.
TAN's position and exactly what data the Election Commission would need to publish to settle the dispute.
How Elections Canada's automatic register shows an alternative to India's voluntary, document-heavy model.
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