New Delhi, Oct. 21 -- The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has become an extraordinary political conflagration. An Indian Express report's claim that some decisions were taken despite two election commissioners repeatedly dissenting to them gave the opposition munition to allege that the SIR exercise presided over by the chief election commissioner (CEC) has led to large scale disenfranchisement engineered to benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Amid this cacophony, three distinct questions deserve dispassionate independent examination: One, is the SIR lawful? Two, were the Commission's decisions lawfully made? And three, did deletions materially alter electoral outcomes? Conflating them produces more heat ...