The intensive revision of electoral rolls is nothing new in India. The exercise has been carried out eight times in the past. But never was there a suspicion or controversy over its intent and procedural inconsistencies.
Neither has the Election Commission of India (EC) been accused of being so grossly biased towards any political party as it is being alleged now. We have heard about booth capturing in the olden days, but never of serious allegations of meticulously planned large-scale voter fraud across India, as Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has claimed.
The grave charges raised against the EC by Rahul relating to “vote theft” in the Haryana election on Wednesday and in the Mahadevapura constituency earlier in August, as well as the various allegations of a rigged process adopted for conducting the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists, have raised serious questions about the EC’s integrity.
The credibility of an electoral system is dependent solely on it being seen as fair by all, including the loser. Given the lack of trust in the EC’s impartiality and actions, and Rahul’s allegations of voter list manipulation, it is not surprising that the hasty SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, carried out amid several procedural inconsistencies and allegations of targeted mass deletion of genuine voters, evoked more suspicion than confidence in the “clean-up” exercise.
As the electoral system remains mired in distrust over the integrity of the process, the Bihar SIR kicked up such a political storm over its hurried implementation that the Supreme Court (SC) was called in to intervene in the matter. Though the apex court’s intervention addressed some of the shortcomings and corrected lapses of the contentious “purification” exercise, the outcome has been far from satisfactory.
The serious concerns raised by the Opposition over the second phase of the ongoing SIR in 12 states and union territories, therefore, need to be seen in this context. In Uttar Pradesh, the SIR has sparked a political row, with the Samajwadi Party alleging caste-based appointment of officials conducting the intensive revision of electoral rolls, while the Congress has questioned the timing of a major bureaucratic reshuffle in the state just after the process began.
In West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a massive protest march in Kolkata on November 4 against the controversial SIR, which she has equated with the National Register of Citizens. Other states, such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala, have also opposed and criticised it as a move to disenfranchise large sections of people.
The ruling DMK and its allies, including the Congress and left parties in Tamil Nadu, have approached the SC challenging the SIR of the state’s electoral rolls, as the ECI has not accepted the state government’s request to schedule it in Tamil Nadu after the 2026 assembly election is over.
Terming it a case of “constitutional overreach” and a move that could lead to large-scale disenfranchisement of voters, the petition, filed by the DMK under Article 32, contends that the SIR lacks statutory force and legal basis under Article 324, which operates only in areas unoccupied by legislation, and therefore cannot supplant the existing statutory framework under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
While concerns and fears persist over round two of the SIR, the EC’s recent statements and actions, far from buttressing public trust and enhancing transparency in the process, have raised more queries than silenced its critics. Trust in the electoral system is foundational to representative democracy.
However, the EC’s neutrality, efficiency, and openness to address grievances of the voters and the Opposition satisfactorily are constantly tested on several counts. Be it the preparation of voter lists, scheduling of elections, enforcement of the model code or the counting process, the EC stands charged on each of these counts and has refused to come clean on multiple complaints, including those related to EVMs and VVPATs.
Democratic rights activists are of the view that the election process is not just a subject of understanding and negotiation between the EC and the political parties. While the latter have a role to play, the real issue is to ensure that the voters at large are also reassured of the integrity of the electoral system.
The Bihar SIR was carried out amid friction, apprehensions, and trust deficits, which cast a shadow of suspicion and anxiety over the process and outcome. In Bihar, the SIR saw a deletion of 47 lakh voters, but the EC has not provided reasons for these deletions.
The EC has also not provided details of foreign nationals removed from the electoral rolls of Bihar after the revision, though it is one of the justifications for carrying out the purification exercise. The same grievances and questions have been raised while the second phase of the clean-up exercise is on.
The Election Commission has said that SIR-2 is different in some respects; it has a longer notice period for hearing and verifying details and has new fields featuring on the enumeration forms with Aadhaar as one of the supporting documents, though it is only a proof of identity and not citizenship. No documents are required to be submitted during house-to-house verification and collection of forms.
But the major flaw in the exercise is that voters must prove that they are Indian citizens if they were not voters in 2002-2004 or are not able to furnish details of a relative who was an elector then. This makes the SIR a citizenship test, though there is still no clarity on the question of whether the EC can undertake a citizenship test. This casts a shadow on the intent behind the SIR, as marginalised sections of society may not be able to comply with documentary proof.
Under the SIR, the burden of proof to be on the voters’ list is on the voters. This, political activist Yogendra Yadav says, is a fundamental shift in India’s architecture of universal franchise. In his view, any shift from state-initiated registration of voters to self-initiated registration leads to a significant drop in the electoral rolls, which could lead to the exclusion of a significant number of eligible voters from the electoral rolls.
This, according to him, happened in Bihar, and he fears that it may happen in round two of the SIR. Clearly, now the ball is in the EC’s court, and it has to come clean on various allegations to reclaim its credibility.
The writer is a senior independent Mumbai-based journalist. He tweets at @ali_chougule
