6 min readOct 14, 2026 03:37 PM IST First published on: Oct 14, 2026 at 03:37 PM ISTWhen tens of thousands of citizens, Opposition leaders, students, and civil society advocates marched shoulder to shoulder toward the Supreme Court (SC) this Monday, the sight was nothing short of historic. Against a backdrop of police barricades, an excessive deployment of uniformed security personnel aimed at enforcing compliance (but mercifully restrained), and public transit suspensions at six Metro stations, ordinary Indians marched to protect the heartbeat of our republic: The right to vote. Monday’s march was not merely a political demonstration; it was a resounding triumph for Indian democracy, proving that when the fundamental architecture of our constitutional rights is threatened, the spirit of our people remains unyielding.For weeks, I have emphasised a stark truth across my columns, television appearances and public forums: The core issue today is that over 130 million Indian citizens have been arbitrarily deprived of their right to vote and choose their political representatives — with possibly more deletions to follow. To put that figure into perspective, 130 million people is larger than the entire population of Japan, Germany, or the United Kingdom. Stripping that many people of their franchise is not a mere administrative oversight by the Election Commission (EC); it is an existential crisis for a democratic constitutional republic. Franchise is the foundational bridge connecting the individual citizen to the state. When that bridge is broken for over 130 million citizens, popular sovereignty is shattered.AdvertisementLet me be clear: I am not against cleaning the voter rolls of duplicate, deceased, or ineligible names that genuinely shouldn’t be there. Maintaining an accurate electoral roll is a basic requirement of good administration. However, the fundamental legal and constitutional principle of “innocent until proven guilty” must apply to voting rights just as it does to our justice system. You cannot unilaterally deregister citizens and then place the burden on them to prove their eligibility. It should be the other way around; the onus must remain on the state to prove ineligibility through due process before any citizen’s name is removed.How did India’s globally admired electoral democracy arrive at this perilous brink? The crisis stems from the hasty implementation of modified rules, a bizarre algorithmic identification of “logical discrepancies” that make no allowance for past clerical errors and typing mistakes, an arbitrary selection of the 2002 electoral register as definitive, an illegal modification of Form 6 and mass filings of Form 7, coupled with an opaque, centralised new software architecture that has systematically crippled local electoral governance.Also Read | Yogendra Yadav writes: Going forward, all protests must be one, coordinate efforts and energiesUnder the law, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) in local communities served as the vital custodians of voter eligibility. Anchored in ground-level realities, EROs were empowered to exercise due diligence, verify residency, and ensure that no legitimate voter was unfairly disenfranchised. But this decentralised system of safeguards was overridden by algorithms and centralised directives, effectively stripping EROs of their authority. As The Indian Express revealed from Goa, decisions that determine whether a citizen retains voting rights are now rendered by centrally administered software, insulated from local scrutiny, the ERO’s judgement, and natural justice. The new rules and procedures violate the spirit of the Representation of the People Act by allowing mass deletions without rigorous, individual-level notice or ground verification.AdvertisementThis iniquitous exercise must be suspended immediately. A robust democracy cannot endure on the promise of periodic elections alone; its basic strength rests entirely upon a transparent, competitive, and accessible electoral system. Of the 70,000 deleted voters whose appeals were heard before the Bengal elections, 91 per cent were found to have been wrongly deleted; but lakhs could not be heard in time and were disenfranchised. This erosion becomes existential: When the electoral process is compromised, and executive convenience is prioritised over constitutional rights, the democratic framework collapses. When the state systematically deletes voters from the rolls and then undermines the public’s right to peaceful popular protest, it cuts off the vital channels through which citizens express their collective will. This is why we must fiercely defend an electoral ecosystem where every eligible citizen’s vote is secured and autonomous institutions like the EC act as impartial guardians of the public rather than handmaidens of the ruling apparatus.you may likeThe Opposition mobilisation called for clarity, urgency, and unwavering commitment to constitutional principles. The SIR must be suspended to halt further disenfranchisement; the irrational and legally questionable rules and procedures under modified Forms 6 and 7 must be repealed; the software architecture rewritten so that EROs regain their rightful, statutory role as the ultimate authority on voter eligibility; and a transparent audit undertaken to restore every disenfranchised citizen to the voter rolls. The EC must reaffirm the core democratic principle that voter eligibility is presumed; the burden of proof must lie on the authorities to justify any removal rather than forcing citizens to re-prove their citizenship and residency. And the SC should review the entire process.Restoring procedural integrity is only half the battle; institutions require trusted leadership. An electoral umpire must be above suspicion, yet the current Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) has fundamentally lost the confidence of the primary Opposition parties. In the interests of accountability for the maladministration of the SIR, he must resign. A compromised CEC who no longer commands trust across the political spectrum cannot credibly preside over the world’s largest election system. Once a verified, inclusive electoral roll is in place, and the election process is demonstrably free, fair, and impartially conducted, all parties will honour the results.Monday’s march demonstrated that the conscience of the nation is wide awake. When thousands walked the streets of the Capital, carrying copies of the Constitution and demanding their fundamental rights, they sent an unmistakable message to every institution in the country: Democracy is not a gift bestowed by government decree; it is a right of the people. Until it is restored, the peaceful struggle for our constitutional rights will continue.The writer is a fourth-term Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram