Ex-Election Chief Says India's Voter Roll Cleanup 'Eliminated' 14-15 Crore Names, Demands ECI Reveal How Many Were Illegal Immigrants

Former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi took a shot at India's Election Commission on Sunday, September 6, over the Special Intensive Revision, the nationwide voter-roll cleanup that's been running since Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announced it in October 2025.

Speaking to ANI in Bhubaneswar, Quraishi said the exercise had "eliminated about 14-15 crore population of India." He called it a backhanded compliment: "I would like to compliment the Election Commission for completing a very difficult mission of eliminating about 14-15 crore population of India through this exercise. I don't know how many illegal immigrants they have found, which was the main purpose of this exercise. It's a pity they have not disclosed this figure."

He went further, saying the ECI had "contributed a lot to population control by eliminating about 15% of India's population" and urged the commission to publicize the number as a "great success."

Quraishi is talking about names dropped from electoral rolls, not actual people vanishing from the country. Open Magazine made that distinction explicit in its coverage, noting his remark was "a criticism of the scale of exclusions, rather than a literal claim that 14-15 crore Indians had disappeared from the country's population." His central question, as Open Magazine framed it, was about the gap between SIR's stated objectives and the number of names that have come under scrutiny during the revision.

The actual question Quraishi is raising concerns the ECI's stated purpose. The commission said the point of this exercise was catching illegal immigrants, non-citizens, and duplicate or dead registrations clogging the rolls. But the Election Commission has not published a number showing how many illegal immigrants or ineligible voters it actually found. Quraishi zeroed in on that gap: "The reason they had given was to find illegal immigrants. Please tell us, how many have you found? In one and a half years, you have not given even one figure. So, what have you achieved? What was your mission? If your mission was something else—to delete genuine voters—congratulations, you have achieved it."

The Maharashtra Numbers

The sharpest test case is Maharashtra. According to data released by the state's Chief Electoral Officer, out of 9,78,54,049 registered electors, only 7,71,65,562 had submitted forms during the enumeration phase as of August 17. The draft voter list that followed showed roughly two crore fewer voters than the prior electoral roll, according to reporting from Deccan Chronicle and Hindustan Times.

Congress leader Pawan Khera has cited that drop as evidence of mass disenfranchisement, asserting that votes are being "stolen" in the state in real time. Opposition parties in other poll-bound states have made similar claims.

Quraishi didn't stop at questioning the ECI's math. In a separate ANI interview, he called the deletions a potential legal problem, not just a bureaucratic one: "Genuine voters have been deleted in very large numbers, and even one genuine voter deleted is a blot on the Election Commission. They have to be accountable. I would even call it a criminal liability." He asked how the commission could strip someone's constitutional right to vote "on flimsy grounds, on very bureaucratic grounds," invoking Article 326 of India's Constitution, which guarantees adult suffrage.

He has also argued more broadly that the exercise is "not well-intentioned": "I think the entire SIR exercise is not well-intentioned. The way it has deleted crores of voters is tinkering with democracy. You are a citizen of India. I'm a citizen of India. Voting is our constitutional right. Article 326 says that everyone shall be registered. So it is not a charity from the Election Commission that they will give you that."

The Other Side of This

The ECI's defense, as stated in its own press notes, is straightforward: electoral rolls need to be accurate, up-to-date and free of ineligible or duplicate entries, while ensuring no eligible elector is left out. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, in announcing the nationwide revision in October 2025, cited migration, voters registered at multiple locations, names not deleted after death, and foreign nationals being included in voter lists as the reasons behind the exercise. The commission maintains the revision process is ongoing and aimed at improving the accuracy of electoral rolls while protecting the rights of eligible voters, according to ANI's reporting.

The unresolved problem is that the ECI has offered no public accounting to prove it's doing either job well. It hasn't released a count of illegal immigrants found, which was the stated justification for the whole exercise. It also hasn't published a breakdown showing how many of the deleted names in Maharashtra, or anywhere else, were confirmed dead, duplicate, or ineligible, versus genuine voters caught up in what Quraishi calls bureaucratic overreach.

Until the Election Commission puts real numbers on the table, on either the illegal-immigrant count it promised or the eligible-voter error rate critics are alleging, this fight stays a battle of dueling claims with no independent way for voters to check who's right.