Coming out strongly in support of the Election Commission and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, a group of 124 former bureaucrats on Saturday raised questions over the allegations of vote rigging without any credible evidence.In an open letter issued to the citizens of India, the former bureaucrats, including former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, former IFS Bhaswati Mukherjee and former IAS officers RD Kapur, Samirendra Chatterjee, M Madan Gopal, Gopal Krishna, Vivek Bhardwaj and Navneet Sehgal, said, “Institutions cannot be judged on the touchstone of political affiliation.”The letter comes two days after 42 retired judges defended the poll panel and backed the SIR, terming it a lawful exercise. The EC has been under persistent attack from the Opposition and civil society organisations over alleged deletion of 13 crore voters.However, describing the SIR as a ‘cleaning up operation”, the ex-bureaucrats said, ‘it (SIR) sanitises voters lists and weeds out ineligible voters. It brings some discomfort in the process, which is part of every major initiative to improve the health of Indian democracy.”They said, “We write because one word, “rigged”, is now thrown at our elections without evidence, and every repetition wounds democratic trust that belongs to all of us.”They highlighted India’s transformation from an era of booth capturing, ballot-box stuffing and poll violence to today’s electoral system with multiple layers of checks and safeguards such as polling agents, EVM sealing, strong-room security and VVPAT verification.“We know what a rigged election looks like. We served in those days you know only from films: the katta at the booth, the bahubali’s men, ballot boxes stuffed or stolen, voters turned away. Booth capturing was so common that Parliament made it a crime in 1989. When violence speaks, democracy falls silent,” they wrote.They cited last year’s Bihar Assembly polls, which recorded no re-polling and the highest voter turnout since 1951. “Today, Bihar, once synonymous with booth capturing, held its 2025 election without a single re-poll, a first in its history. Turnout was the highest since 1951, and women voted in record numbers,’’ the letter read.“A system cannot be honest when you win and rigged when you lose,” the letter said, pointing out that under the same EC, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre lost several state polls as well as its parliamentary majority in 2024.“Under this same Commission, the party ruling at the Centre lost Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir, and in 2024 lost its own majority. The winners raised no complaint. A system cannot be honest when you win and rigged when you lose,” the letter read.“If the system you call rigged is the same one that handed you your victories, ask yourself whether it is the system you doubt, or only the result. Democracies are worn away by those who create loud political narratives to incite volatile sections of citizens without sufficient proven evidence that their vote was never counted, or their vote doesn’t matter. That’s clearly an attempt to find relevance after being discarded by people through the electoral system,” they wrote.‘The Supreme Court refused to halt the SIR but watched every step. It ordered the names of all 65 lakh people left off the draft roll published with reasons. It allowed claims to be filed online, required Aadhaar to be accepted as proof of identity, warned that it would strike down the entire exercise if illegality were found at any stage, and arranged free legal aid for appeals.“On 27 May 2026, the Court upheld the Commission’s authority under Article 324 of the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act and added safeguards for wrongly deleted voters. Errors must be corrected, but the legitimacy of the SIR is settled. Respecting the Court’s verdict, even when it disappoints us, is the price of a constitutional democracy,” the letter read.