The Election Commission of India (ECI) began its defence of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls before the Supreme Court on Tuesday (January 6, 2026) by dismissing claims that it is conducting a “parallel" National Register of Citizens (NRC) as sheer “rhetoric”. The poll body maintained that it has the “constitutional power, even a constitutional duty” to ensure that not a single foreigner, as far as possible, occupies space in the nation’s electoral rolls.
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The ECI’s commencement of its counter to petitions challenging the constitutionality of the SIR process coincided with the publication of the draft voter list of Uttar Pradesh, which has seen the deletion of nearly three crore names out of the 15.44 crore voters previously registered in the State. The SIR kicked off in Bihar last year and expanded to cover 12 more States and Union Territories in the ongoing second phase.
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“We have a constitutional duty, and not just a constitutional power, to ensure no foreigners are there on the electoral rolls. It is not important how many foreigners are found… It was repeatedly asked of us to show how many foreigners were found in Bihar, but that is not important. Even if there was one foreigner, he had to be excluded. We are not concerned with the rhetoric of the political parties. They may be right or wrong. As the Election Commission, it is our constitutional duty to ensure there are no foreign voters as far as possible,” senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the ECI, clarified before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant.
