Voters' List Revision : EC Pushes, Opposition smells a Rat

Amid loud protests by the opposition parties, the Election Commission of India has begun special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in Bihar, just five months before the state goes to polls. The focus of the exercise is the requirement of citizenship proof from the voters who were enrolled after 2003, when the last intensive revision was conducted recording 4.9 core voters.

The commission has made it mandatory for new applicants as well existing voters, enrolled after 2003, to submit a self-attested declaration that they are Indian citizens by birth or registration or naturalisation and submit documentary proof of date and place of birth or certificate of naturalisation or registration in support of it.

The commission requires new and shifted voters to declare if they were born in India prior to 1 July 1987, in which case they must choose from one of the listed documents to establish their date and place of birth. If born in India between July 1, 1987 and December 2, 2012 they must also provide a listed document for their mother or father, the commission says.

If born after December 2, 2004, they must provide proof of date and place of birth, if one of the parents is non-Indian, they must provide a copy of the passport of the parent’s valid passport and visa at the time of their birth, the commission adds.

Opposition leaders allege that the exercise is a proxy for preparing a National Register for Citizens (NRC). The CPM wrote to the commission to say that the exercise is akin to implementing a national register of citizens for the state ahead of the polls and requested it to abandon the exercise.

The party further said that the commission is putting a larger onus on the voters for inclusion or deletion of their names from the roll. Asking the voters to submit the proof residence will lead their harassment who may not have the required papers. The timing of the exercise is also a matter of concern, the party said.

A day before the exercise began offline as well online, leaders of the INDIA block organised a press conference at Patna to say that the revision is a mockery of democracy and the constitution. They alleged that the electoral roll revision exercise has the hidden agenda of depriving several sections of the voters of their voting right to favour the ruling BJP.

``Fearing impending defeat of the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in the state, there seems to be a conspiracy to remove the names of poor, exploited, deprived, backwards, extremely backwards, Dalits, tribals and minorities from the voters’ list,’’ Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav Said.

Demanding that the exercise be stopped immediately, Mr. Yadav said that why the existing voters’ list is not recognised when the last Lok Sabha election was held on the same roll. He further said that no parties were taken consulted before the exercise began.

  ``We smell a conspiracy in this decision. How can the electoral roll of eight crore voters be updated just in one month. Why the sudden urgency to complete the SIR in 25 days, when this never has been done in the past 22 years? he further said, adding that as 73 percent of people live in flood-affected areas in the state, how will people show their documents? They will first protect their lives and properties not the document,’’ he emphasised.

The revision is mandated to be completed in a month during which 89,450 booth level officers will conduct door-to-door verification in the all the 243 constituencies.

The commission will treat the 2003 electoral as probative evidence of eligibility both for being voters and citizens unless proved otherwise. After the process is completed in Bihar, it will be later roll out across the country.

Apart from including or deleting the names of the voters from the electoral roll, the polls officers will forward the names of suspected foreign nationals in the roll or applying for a fresh inclusion in it to the competent authority under the citizenship Act for further action.

Thereafter, the suspected foreigners will be subjected to further enquiry, and if the suspicion is confirmed, the next procedure is to confine them in detention centres before their deportation after their credentials are found fake.

Those whose names do not figure the 2003 roll will have to submit proof of their eligibility to claim inclusion of their names in the roll from one of the eleven government issued documents.

The commission has justified the verification process by citing Article 326 of the Constitution which says that only Indian citizens and residents of a particular constituency have the right to vote.

It justified the timing quoting the section 22 (A) of the Representation of the People Act, 150 and Rule 25 of the Registration of Elector Rules 1961 which make the revision of the electoral roll mandatory before every election or byelection unless the commission directs otherwise recording the reasons in writing.

Former chief election commissioner T.S. Krishnamurthy also justified the exercise and dismissed the opposition’s apprehensions. ``The issue with political parties is that whether work is done or not, they still have something to complain about. It has become a habit to criticise, no matter the effort,’’ he told to a news agency.

Bihar will witness stormy months ahead in the run up to the election. The stakes are very for both alliances—INDIA and NDA. Amid rumoured failing health of chief minister Kumar affecting the governance, INDIA block sees a chance to come back to power, while the NDA is leaving no stone unturned to the keep the winning streak going.

How the electoral revision goes about will be interesting to watch. Submission of documents is apprehended to lead to chaos at the grassroots levels as happened during the land survey in the state. The government had to suspend it as several instances of quarrels were reported from across the state.

There are a very large number of people in the state, particularly poor and uneducated, who do not have the required papers. They also face harassment and disgusting delay when they approach to the officers concerned for the documents.

A farmer at my village told me a few months back that he had to pay a hefty bribe for payment of land tax and getting a receipt of it, despite it being online.

Box Item 

• Evolution has primed our minds to understand death by tiger. Our mind finds it much more difficult to understand death by document, noted writer Yuval Noah Harari says in his book Nexus.

• He recounts in the book how his maternal grandfather, a Jew, had to flee Romania as he failed to get his birth certificate to prove his residency to claim citizenship of the country because he was born at a place which was annexed by Romania after his birth.

• As the Romanian dictator, prime minister Octavian Goga, felt that tens of thousands of illegal Jews had entered the country illegally, he ordered them to produce documents to prove their citizenship.

• Clerks and archivists got a new source of income as Jews were ready to pay handsome money for the documents.

• As his grandfather failed to submit the document, his citizenship was revoked. With great difficulty, he somehow managed to migrate to Palestine. 

• He was arrested there for being an illegal migrant. He was offered Palestinian citizenship by the British if he enlisted in their army.  He accepted the offer and got the citizenship papers, Harari said.