The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has introduced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in its revised Class 9 Social Science textbook, describing it as a mechanism to ensure that no eligible citizen is excluded from the voter list and no ineligible person is included. The textbook also praises the Election Commission of India (ECI) for conducting impartial elections despite challenges such as fake news, misinformation and intimidation.

The inclusion comes a year after the SIR exercise was launched in Bihar ahead of the state assembly elections. The exercise, which has since expanded to 19 states and Union territories, has led to the deletion of nearly six crore names from electoral rolls and sparked a political controversy, with opposition parties accusing the ECI of disenfranchising voters.

"The ECI also conducts Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which involves updating, verifying and correcting the electoral rolls. Through SIR, it ensures that no eligible citizen is left out and no ineligible person is included in the electoral roll.

"This exercise ensures the addition of all voters, especially the young voters who have just turned 18 and may be left out due to a lack of awareness of any other reason," reads a section of the textbook titled "Understanding Society: India and Beyond".

The textbook notes that the SIR process also removes names of voters on account of death, change of residence, duplicate enrolment or if they are permanently untraceable.

"EC gives time to raise claims or objections against the revised electoral roll and settles these claims and objections before publishing the final electoral roll," it said.

The SIR exercise began as a pilot in Bihar on June 24 last year before the assembly polls. It resulted in a trimmed electoral roll, with nearly 65 lakh names removed, amid allegations by opposition parties and activists that the ECI was acting at the BJP's behest by excluding voters over documentation issues.

The revised textbook, prepared in line with the new National Curriculum Framework, also underlines the scale of India's electoral process and the ECI's role in ensuring free and fair elections.

The earlier Class 9 textbook, in its chapter on electoral politics, only mentioned that "a complete revision of the list takes place every five years and this is done to ensure that it remains up to date."

"India's electoral exercise is unparalleled and distinct from those in other parts of the world with over 96.8 crore eligible voters spread across diverse regions and terrains," the revised chapter stated.

It further said the ECI manages this vast exercise autonomously and works to ensure elections across the country are conducted in a free and fair manner.

"Despite numerous challenges to conducting free and fair elections, the ECI tries to ensure that elections are carried out impartially at multiple levels," it said.

A dedicated section titled "Challenges to free and fair elections" adds, "In India, conducting elections for 96.8 crore voters with thousands of polling stations and hundreds of political parties spread across diverse regions and socio-economic realities is a challenging task."