Not all young voters, however, see the controversy as enough reason to lose faith in elections themselves.Written by Sameer AnasingarajuThe controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar have left young voters divided over their confidence in India’s electoral system. While some Gen Z voters say the developments have deepened doubts about the fairness of elections, others believe the controversy stems partly from a lack of understanding of the purpose of SIR and say their faith in the electoral process remains intact. For some, however, the current controversy has only reinforced doubts that already existed.An investigation by The Indian Express has revealed that 14 times in 10 months, two Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had written emails to bring to note decisions taken without their approval with regards to centralisation of ECINET portal, changes in Form 6, and other issues.Pratik Agarwal, 23, who recently completed his MBA in Sports Management, has a contrasting view. He said his trust in the electoral process has not reduced and argued that young people should understand why SIR was introduced before forming an opinion about it. “My trust hasn’t been reduced at all, because people need to understand why the SIR was implemented. Most of the youth do not know and they are just getting influenced by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) supporting content creators. SIR was implemented to delete dead, duplicate, migrated, or fake voters from the list. The ECI is responsible for making sure every valid citizen of India gets to vote and they are doing that,” he added.For 22-year-old political science student graduate Nikhil Kumar, however, the controversy has made it harder to maintain confidence in the electoral process. “Yes, my confidence has gone down, because it’s hard not to doubt with everything happening. If our votes are taken before we even start, what kind of democracy is left for us?” Kumar said.“My trust in free and fair elections was gone long before the SIR and CEC controversy, this just confirmed it,” said Rohan Shinde, 21.Sharwari Potdar, 23, described the issue as more complicated, saying that both the functioning of the Election Commission and the SIR process have raised questions for her. “It is quite a tricky situation. For a layman like me, this entire SIR is also quite confusing,” Potdar said. She also expressed concern over voters being removed from electoral rolls. “Valid voters are getting deleted. This is not right.”Story continues below this adNot all young voters, however, see the controversy as enough reason to lose faith in elections themselves.“My trust in the elections is still resolute, as at the end of the day the votes are counted by the EVMs,” said 19-year-old Mehek Yadav. “I do not think they have been tampered with, and the opposition is only raising SIR issues as the government seems vulnerable after the recent CJP protests.”For Gen Z, the debate over SIR appears to have raised more questions than it has answered. While some young voters continue to place faith in the Election Commission and the electoral process, others say the recent controversies have made them question whether every eligible vote will be protected. With young voters forming an increasingly important part of the electorate, how they perceive the credibility and transparency of the election process could have wider implications for public trust in Indian democracy.