We’re Releasing a Free Toolkit to Help Deleted Voters File Appeals — No Strings Attached
Nearly 91 lakh voters in West Bengal have been excluded from the electoral rolls under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. Many of them don’t know why. Many more don’t know they can fight back.
Today, Sabar Institute is releasing the SIR Appeal: A Citizen’s Handbook — a free, practical guide to help deleted voters, grassroots workers, advocates, and community organisations navigate the appeals process.
What’s inside:
The handbook covers everything you need to file an appeal before the Appellate Tribunals constituted by the Election Commission of India. It includes a plain-language explanation of the appeals process, step-by-step filing instructions (both online and offline), guidelines for framing legal arguments across different categories of deletion, nine ready-to-use sample appeal formats covering the most common deletion reasons, twenty real filed appeal examples (with personal details redacted), and a sample application for submitting additional documents.
Who is it for?
Anyone. We designed this for citizens who have been deleted, for community leaders helping others navigate the process, for legal aid volunteers and advocates, and for organisations working on voter rights across West Bengal.
It’s completely free to use — forever.
This document is published under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. That means you can download it, print it, translate it, adapt it, share it, and use it in any way you like — without asking us, without crediting us, and without any restrictions whatsoever. We mean it. If it helps even one more person get their vote back, that’s enough.
Download the handbook here: [INSERT LINK]
About Sabar Institute
Sabar Institute is a Kolkata-based social science research organisation working at the intersection of data, law, and grassroots advocacy. Our work on electoral rolls and the SIR process has made us a leading voice for voter rights in West Bengal and Eastern India. Learn more at www.sabarinstitute.org or reach our helpline at +918585859971.