Obstacle race: On Special Intensive Revision exercise

On Gandhiji’s birth anniversary, many Opposition parties, student groups and other citizens took to the streets in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. Their grievance was that Mr. Kumar has presided over a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise meant to “clean” the electoral rolls, but in practice has become an exercise in the serial disenfranchisement of lakhs of Indian citizens. The BJP-led Union and State governments reacted predictably, refusing permission for the protest and imposing prohibitory orders. In Delhi, the government shut down the Internet in the Jantar Mantar area, closed 11 Metro stations and detained over 700 protesters. In Mumbai, the police denied permission for the gathering at Shivaji Park, but the protesters turned up anyway. The reason for the anger is plain. Emboldened by a deferential Supreme Court verdict upholding the SIR’s constitutional validity, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has taken the flawed method that it first adopted in Bihar, added a new exclusion criterion called “logical discrepancies” that it first implemented in West Bengal, and extended it from State to Union Territory (UT). The enumeration process puts the onus on electors to prove their eligibility, with many deleted first and verified later. Getting back onto the rolls after being struck off the draft is onerous, while dubious mass requests for deletion are easy to file and quick to process. Nearly 13.4 crore electors have been removed from the draft rolls across 30 States and UTs — about 14% of the electorate before the revision. Each phase has deleted more than the last: 8.3% in Bihar, 12.9% across the 12 States and UTs of Phase 2, and 17% in Phase 3.

The ECI has said that deleted electors can return during the claims phase, but only as fresh applicants provided they find that they have been struck off. The ECI’s own members objected to the plainly illegal changes to procedure. Form 6 was altered without any amendment to the rules, asking applicants whether they, or their parents or grandparents, appeared on the roll of the last SIR. In West Bengal, 16.1 lakh requests were filed to remove electors whom judicial officers had already cleared. A centralised roll database in New Delhi helped make this possible. The ECI has now asked BLOs to restore deleted voters to the rolls; it is an implicit admission that the process disenfranchised many. The semi-corrective steps do not absolve the two Election Commissioners. As majority in the ECI, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi could have overruled the CEC. The exercise, as it is being carried out now, is an obstacle not only to universal adult franchise but also to electoral democracy itself.