The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) on Wednesday, October 7, voiced deep concern over reports of irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the ongoing exercise to revise India’s voter lists. In a press statement shared with Christian Today India, the bishops urged the Election Commission of India to guard every citizen’s right to vote.
The Election Commission, the constitutional body that runs the country’s elections, is carrying out the SIR across the country. The exercise began in Bihar in June 2025. The voter lists, known as electoral rolls, are the registers of eligible voters.
Founded in 1944, the CBCI is the permanent association of the country’s Catholic bishops, with its headquarters in Delhi. It covers the Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Churches, the three Catholic Churches in India, and claims that it represents about 22 million Catholics.
The CBCI pointed to an investigative report by The Indian Express, a national daily. Published on September 23, the report by Ritika Chopra said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, two of the commission’s three members, had objected on record at least 14 times in ten months. They said the commission took decisions on matters such as new voter registration and the deletion of names without their knowledge. The newspaper reported that the SIR had struck more than 13 crore names, or 130 million, off draft voter rolls in 30 states and centrally administered territories. It also reported that the two commissioners warned against the centralisation of the electoral roll database, and that the full commission met on September 9 for the first time in four months. The commission did not respond to the newspaper’s questions, the report said.
The bishops called for strict safeguards so that every eligible voter keeps the right to vote that the Constitution guarantees. They asked the commission to run the revision fairly and with full transparency, and to make sure no genuine citizen is removed from the rolls.
The conference warned against a slide towards exclusion. “Disenfranchisement must never become the ‘new normal’,” the CBCI said, cautioning that such a trend would put India’s democracy at serious risk. Disenfranchisement means the loss of the right to vote.
The bishops described public confidence in electoral bodies as the foundation of a healthy democracy. They asked the commission to honour that confidence by protecting every eligible citizen’s voice, and by ensuring the process does not even appear to favour any side or party.
The conference also expressed solidarity with people who are protesting peacefully over demands it described as legitimate, and who want to safeguard the country’s democracy. The statement did not name the protesters.
Media reports describe demonstrations across the country. On Tuesday, October 6, opposition MPs of the INDIA bloc, an alliance of parties opposed to the ruling coalition, marched towards the commission’s office in Delhi. Police stopped them, and they held a sit-in outside the office of NITI Aayog, a government policy body. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of acting at the government’s behest. On October 4, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, two parties from the western state of Maharashtra, held a protest in Mumbai demanding his resignation and the suspension of the SIR.
The CBCI also asked protesters to stay away from violence entirely and keep their demonstrations peaceful. It urged citizens to hold to democratic values, and asked everyone with a stake in the process to cooperate in keeping it honest.
The statement closed with a prayer. “Let us continue to pray unceasingly for our motherland during these difficult times,” the CBCI said.
