DC Edit | National SIR Should Be Inclusive
The EC will do well to assess the exercise it has conducted in Bihar and take the right cues, not to mention heeding the advice of the Supreme Court that it should be an inclusive process and not an exclusive one when rolling it out across the country
The Election Commission of India is constitutionally mandated to ensure the integrity of the voters’ lists based on which elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislatures are held and hence its decision to go ahead with a special intensive revision (SIR) in all states cannot be faulted. The EC is expected to check the preparedness of the states during its meeting with chief electoral officers of the states on September 10.
While the SIR has a constitutional mandate, the EC will do well to assess the exercise it has conducted in Bihar and take the right cues, not to mention heeding the advice of the Supreme Court that it should be an inclusive process and not an exclusive one when rolling it out across the country. The revision triggered a storm of sorts when it was learnt that about eight per cent of the names in the existing voters list had been excised. A forcible intervention by the Supreme Court has, for the time being, calmed waters. But a repeat of the Bihar experience at the national level will be more than disquieting. At the minimum, the EC must not rush through the process and, instead, give the voters sufficient time to present their credentials.
The decadal census is about to take off in a few months. The data that will be collected from the people of the country could be a bit different from that which the EC would seek. With modern technological tools at our disposal, the government can explore the possibility of combining the exercises together. This would result in a saving of resources and the EC can have a revision every 10 years, instead of the 25-year interval that it follows now.
The government may also consider adopting the practice of some democratic nations where a child, whose birth is registered gets automatically enrolled in the voters list soon as she attains majority as part of a normal process, and is removed from it once the registrar of deaths intimates the agency concerned about her demise. These are options that can be considered in order to replace the present chaotic and arbitrary exercise with a scientific, sustainable and fool-proof one. Time the government and the EC sat together and explored possibilities of making it a robust one.