DC Edit | EC’s Six-crore Purge A Self-goal On SIR?

The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the country undertaken by the Election Commission is turning out to be the biggest challenge faced by the Indian Republic after it came into being if one were to go by the number of deletions from the voter lists and reports about the callous way the exercise is being carried out, disenfranchising people on questionable grounds which strikes at the roots of a constitutional democracy. What is worse is that while hapless voters are drawn into unending legal processes to restore their democratic right, the EC is presenting it as its crowning achievement across the globe. The government appears gleeful as the EC elects the voters and the judiciary plays the role of a willing assistant.

It is estimated that six crores of the 36 crore names in the electoral rolls in 16 states and three Union territories which conducted the SIR have been deleted in the third phase. The National Capital Territory of Delhi perhaps bore the worst brunt when it saw one in every three voters there being declared ineligible to vote. This is perhaps the highest share of invalid numbers in a state or a UT. More than two crore voters in Maharashtra have been removed from the rolls, while in Karnataka, the number is 1.07 crores. More than 73 lakh names have been removed from the rolls in Telangana, 44 lakhs in Andhra Pradesh and 43 lakhs in Jharkhand, followed by other states which also saw names being removed in their lakhs.

It was not long ago the EC conducted the elections to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly after deleting about 90 lakh names from the voters’ list. It had made no arrangements to ensure that all those who had been denied their voting rights would have a chance to be heard by the tribunals before the polls; only a few thousand appeals were heard by the time the elections were held. It now emerges that the SIR appellate tribunals in the state have restored the voting rights of 75,443 of the 82,782 persons who moved them. This means 91 per cent of those asked not to vote in the Assembly elections were treated unjustly, undemocratically, illegally and unconstitutionally by the EC which removed their names and the apex court which refused to give them a fair hearing.

The EC claims that it has the legal mandate to conduct the SIR to which none has a quibble. But the right to clean up the voters’ list is not an order to strip people of their voting rights. Worse, the EC’s steps have given governments in many states the leeway to deny people their other rights including renewal of passports and even issue of ration cards or getting rice under popular schemes. The chief election commissioner himself has been linking the voters’ list and citizenship, which is a matter totally outside his remit.

The SIR has become a threat to voters’ rights when it asks the voters to prove their claim to be on the voters’ list. Common sense would dictate that the EC produce proof before removing a name as the list was prepared by no agency other than itself and upon the production and verification of documents. Thus, the EC is undermining the very process it has undertaken in its efforts to disenfranchise the people. This must stop. Voting rights are no child’s play. If the EC does not understand it, it is then for the apex court to intervene and read out the Constitution.