Gerrymandering — the practice of redrawing electoral boundaries to benefit a particular political party — has long formed the context in which disputes over constituency mapping arise. The 2022 delimitation exercise, which reordered Assembly and parliamentary constituency boundaries across Jammu and Kashmir, drew sharp opposition from those who argued the redrawing reduced the electoral influence of the Valley's predominantly Muslim population. Across India, a distinct variety of electoral boundary-drawing is under way, one whose consequences analysts have suggested may extend well beyond previous efforts of this kind.
At issue on this occasion is a dispute unrelated to the redrawing of constituency lines. The aim, at its core, involves reshaping who makes up the voting population. Analysts in the region contended that voter registration boundaries had been redrawn in ways that altered the balance of electoral representation across Kashmir. The Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls carries the possibility of reshaping voter composition itself — a process that would, by its own logic, redraw the balance of political representation before any ballot is cast.
Two mechanisms are at work in such disputes. Ward boundaries determine which candidates appear on a resident's ballot; the second mechanism reshapes the pool of eligible voters assigned to those districts.
The 2022 boundary-redrawing process in Jammu and Kashmir draws a comparable thread through the broader narrative. When the revocation of Article 370 and the subsequent territorial reorganisation took effect in August 2019, a Delimitation Commission was established to redraw the boundaries of electoral constituencies across the newly formed union territories. Through that process, the count of elected Assembly seats grew from 83 to 90, with constituencies falling under Pakistani administration excluded from the tally.
Six seats were added to Jammu's allocation, bringing its total to 43, whereas the Kashmir Valley's count increased by a single seat to reach 47. Geographical scope, administrative structure, and representational balance all featured in the rationale the Commission put forward for its proposals. Parties operating in Kashmir raised questions about the allocation process, noting that Jammu gained six new Assembly seats whereas the Valley — home to a larger share of the population — was allotted only one.
Disputes over how parliamentary constituencies were drawn up formed part of the same broader argument. Rajouri and Poonch districts, lying beyond the Pir Panjal range, were drawn into the same constituency as Anantnag, reshaping both the territorial boundaries and the voter base that had long defined the south Kashmir seat. Objections to the process came from Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, both former chief ministers, along with other voices, who contended that it stood to dilute the electoral weight carried by Kashmir's predominantly Muslim population. Party officials put forward a counter-position, arguing that the redrawn boundaries offer a more accurate reflection of the population they cover.
Prannoy Roy built a reputation over decades as a television presence whose on-screen breakdowns of voting data became a reference point for many Indian viewers following election night coverage. From the early 1980s onward, Roy's approach to election reporting drew on India's political and social fabric, turning what had previously been a tallying exercise into a broader examination of the country's democratic life. That background gave weight to his scrutiny of the Special Intensive Revision process for electoral rolls.
The available evidence, according to Roy, points to the possibility that voter rolls may have been manipulated to exclude eligible participants — a process that, if it occurred, would have unfolded within administrative databases well ahead of any polling day. In a formal statement, the Election Commission of India described the Special Intensive Revision as a procedure aimed at weeding out ineligible entries from electoral rolls and keeping voter lists accurate. Roy has raised concerns about the pace at which the revision was carried out in the period leading up to state elections.
Roy has also argued that voter-eligibility screening demands thorough groundwork, robust protections, and genuine avenues through which those facing removal can mount a formal challenge.
Data drawn from West Bengal's 2026 Assembly election results have left several points open to scrutiny. Where rolls of deleted voter names were longest, the data found that electoral momentum toward the Bharatiya Janata Party also ran strongest. Among the 25 constituencies where voter-roll deletions ran highest, the electoral shift away from the Trinamool Congress was reportedly close to double the figure observed in areas where such deletions were fewest.
The state's top electoral official in West Bengal pushed back on assertions linking SIR deletions to voting outcomes, characterising those assertions as without factual grounding and based on conjecture rather than evidence.
Data gathered jointly by the Sabar Institute and BehanBox showed that around six in ten of the voter entries removed or flagged for adjudication during the revision exercise belonged to women. Female voters in West Bengal have drawn sustained attention from political parties, none of which has felt able to contest elections without factoring their preferences into campaign strategy. According to the findings, people identified as Muslim encountered content removal at a rate roughly 52 percent above that recorded for those outside that religious group. The figures draw on inferred religious affiliations rather than any formally recorded faith-based breakdown of voter data.
Questions raised by the dispute now extend to the Election Commission and the Chief Election Commissioner, whose conduct and decisions are drawing fresh attention. Calls have been put forward for the Commission to place detailed, constituency-level data on voter-roll deletions in the public domain — covering the grounds for each removal, demographic breakdowns, objections lodged, appeals resolved, and names later reinstated.
Reservations put on record by S.Y. Quraishi, who previously held the post of Chief Election Commissioner, drew attention to the matter. Both Quraishi and retired Supreme Court justice Rohinton Nariman have drawn attention to the value of protecting electoral processes and keeping institutions free from outside interference.
As Assembly elections draw near in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, questions about voter roll revision processes have drawn scrutiny. Navigating administrative systems to recover a removed name can involve multiple steps and repeated visits to government offices, a process that tends to place a heavier practical burden on people with limited resources, those in older age brackets, workers who have relocated, and individuals whose paperwork trail is incomplete. Voters who learn their names were incorrectly struck from the electoral roll after the registration deadline has passed lose their opportunity to participate in that election.
Calls for an independent audit of the SIR process have been put forward as a proportionate step. Three areas have been identified for examination: whether eligible voters were removed from the rolls at disproportionate rates, whether those removals fell unevenly across particular demographic groups or geographic regions, and whether anyone seeking to challenge a deletion had a workable avenue to do so. Any instances of confirmed unjust exclusion have been cited as warranting remedial action.
Boundary redrawing carried out across Jammu and Kashmir in 2022 reshaped how voters and communities translate into seats, raising questions about who ends up with a voice in elected bodies. The dispute over the Special Intensive Revision has drawn into focus broader questions about whether voter registration systems could be used to reshape electoral representation. Enrolling on the electoral roll gives any democratic system a concrete footing from which to operate, and voting marks one moment in a process that takes root long before ballots are counted.
