SIR Is Turning Out To Be A Gift From The EC To The Opposition

The Election Commission appears to have gifted a persuasive campaign slogan to the Opposition for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls with its hasty and clumsy Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise randomly removing so far as many as 65 lakh voters from the state electoral lists. This has triggered a huge controversy, galvanising the INDIA alliance to organise widespread mass protests now channelised in the Rahul Gandhi-led Vote Adhikar Yatra across the length and breadth of Bihar. With all opposition parties, including those not allied to the INDIA bloc, vociferous in their condemnation of the SIR, any advantage that the BJP and its allies may have hoped to garner from this inexplicable tweaking of the electoral rolls on the eve of the polls looks like it is badly backfiring.

For a vast majority of people, except perhaps the rich and powerful, their vote, whether in state assembly or parliamentary polls, is the most prized possession. Voters have been known to be manipulated on the basis of caste and creed or even with offers of financial incentives. But any attempt to entirely erase them from the electoral list is perceived as a mortal blow since it is only their individual vote and election time that make them feel valued by politicians, bureaucrats and powerful local bigwigs.

Not surprisingly, the compelling apprehension of “Vote Chori” (vote stealing) on the eve of the polls has triggered palpable alarm among voters. This is a heaven-sent boon to the Opposition in Bihar, till recently floundering over whether to pick holes in the caste census, Operation Sindoor or the Trump-Modi bromance. The issue of “Vote Chori” has armed opposition parties to jointly harangue both the Election Commission and the ruling BJP, who on their part have lent credibility to the charges by appearing to be guilty partners.

Much of the blame for this public “trust deficit” in a free and fair electoral process, as noted by even the Supreme Court bench, which is hearing a spate of petitions for a stay on the SIR, can be attributed to the manner in which the Election Commission has bludgeoned through with the exercise. So far, it has come up with no plausible explanation why it has chosen to undertake such a drastic revision of over 77 million voters in Bihar just a few months before the assembly polls during the monsoon season, when communications are crippled by floods among a population that is overwhelmingly poor and semi-literate.

This is not the first time that opposition parties and activist groups have questioned the authenticity of polls before or after the event. But rarely has the Election Commission been so dismissive of doubts raised about its strange insistence on carrying out this elaborate enumeration against all odds. Nor has a constitutional body, which is supposed to be politically non-partisan, appeared so biased, even openly threatening the Leader of the Opposition, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The latest public exposure of top election officials of the land seeming to have a private agenda came in the guise of a press conference in the national capital, Delhi, this week, which was supposed to answer questions from the media on the controversy over elections but soon degenerated into a meaningless farce. Instead of giving factual information and answering queries, the Election Commission panel, led by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, chose to hurriedly dodge even the mildest questions from the now characteristic largely docile media. Not surprisingly, this has further fuelled suspicions, particularly in Bihar, that the Commission seemed to have something to hide.

CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s known proximity to the all-powerful Home Minister Amit Shah, having served under him for several years before retirement and elevation to his current post, in any case, was bound to have raised question marks over his non-partisanship in supervising elections. He has compounded these suspicions by behaving so superciliously with the critics of the functioning of the Election Commission, reportedly quite out of character with his more affable personality during his previous stint as a bureaucrat. It appears as if he is taking a cue from his former boss Shah, who has sneered at the Opposition campaign as an “excuse for defeat even before they lose the Bihar polls”, which may be okay as political banter but hardly the tone to be adopted by a supposedly apolitical chief of a crucial constitutional pillar of Indian democracy.

At the moment the BJP looks a bit stunned at the way the “Vote Chori” controversy has caught the public imagination not just in Bihar but elsewhere in the country as well. Already there is criticism from sections of the Hindutva brigade on social media of Amit Malviya, the BJP propaganda chief, for not being vigilant and effective enough to counter the onslaught unleashed by the Opposition against the ruling party. There is also a growing realisation in the government and the party that the growing public perception of the poll body itself meddling with the electoral process and not just failing to stop poll malpractices could result in a major backlash not just in Bihar but across the country.

However, for the moment the BJP’s main worry is to limit the damage in Bihar, where elections are barely a few months away. With the Opposition now equipped with a single readymade slogan that resonates in both villages and towns, the ruling party and its allies are clearly on the back foot. Although partners in the NDA have so far not broken ranks in supporting the controversial Election Commission voter revision, there have been stray voices, including a member of parliament and a state legislator from the BJP’s biggest ally, Janata Dal (United), expressing reservations about legitimate voters being penalised by the SIR for being unable to produce all the required documents in such a short time.

Most importantly, local officials who will be holding a Damocles’ Sword threatening electoral castration are bound to oppress the poor and marginalised beyond political bias, which cannot but reflect adversely on those occupying the throne in Patna and Delhi.

Published on: Friday, August 22, 2025, 11:41 AM IST