The Special Intensive Revision launched by the Election Commission, with the declared objective of cleaning up the electoral rolls, has raised several disturbing constitutional and procedural questions. The opposition parties have accused the Commission of aligning itself with the interests of the ruling dispensation at the Centre and advancing its political objectives. They are contemplating a second impeachment move against the Chief Election Commissioner.
The issue can no longer be ignored as a routine electoral exercise of updating the voter’s list, or as the usual political spat between the ruling party and the opposition, when millions of voters have been deleted from the existing rolls in a hurried exercise before elections in many States.
The uproar reached its peak with the West Bengal SIR where over 91 lakh electors have been deleted from the rolls, the majority of whom are alleged to be Muslims. Over 27 lakh of these voters have filed appeals with the appellate tribunals, but they could not vote in the elections as their appeals had not been decided by then.
Article 324 of the Constitution of India vests the Election Commission with the power of superintendence, direction and control of elections. Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 directs that the electoral roll shall be revised before each general election and before each bye-election, and in any year if directed by the Commission. The Commission may also, for reasons to be recorded, direct a special revision of the electoral roll for any constituency or a part of a constituency. In all such cases, the electoral roll for the constituency, as in force at the time, shall continue to be in force until the completion of the special revision.
Rule 25 of the Registration of Electors Rules,1960 provides that the roll revision may be done either intensively or summarily, or partly intensively or partly summarily.
The term ‘Special Intensive Revision’ is nowhere in the election laws and is clearly an invention of the present Election Commission. It is rather odd that a term not found in the relevant Act or Rules is used by a Constitutional Authority in the exercise of its statutory function.
The true import of this newly coined electoral term emerged gradually as the exercise progressed. In its order rolling out the programme, the Commission asserted that it has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only persons who are Indian citizens are included in the electoral rolls. Any person whose name was not recorded in the electoral roll prepared after the last intensive revision in the State was required to submit sufficient documentary evidence from a list of prescribed documents for establishing his eligibility to be an elector. Possession of an Elector’s Photo Identity Card or having one’s name in the latest electoral roll, duly prepared after summary revision by the same Election Commission, was of no avail.
Hitherto, the practice in these roll revisions has been to assume the eligibility of existing voters as already accepted, unless there is evidence to the contrary. For the first time, the presumption has been inverted in favour of exclusion.
One of the innovative tools used by the Commission to exclude voters in West Bengal is “logical discrepancy”, another terminological invention unknown to election law. Anyone familiar with the local language, cultural practices and habits would know that different English spellings are used for the same names, that some surnames like Mukhopadhyay and Bandopadhyay have a different version in English, that some Muslim surnames or their abbreviations like Sk. or Md. could be used alternatively and may appear either at the beginning or at the end of the name. That there are many families, not necessarily Muslim, with more than six children. But many such voters were cut off from the rolls by the logical discrepancy sword.
Mismatch in parents’ names and a small age gap with parents have also been reported as reasons for exclusion. You can’t blame the victims for calling the SIR a surgical strike to eliminate some sections of the voters from the electoral roll.
The right to vote is a fundamental democratic right and perhaps one of the few rights the poor and the marginalised have been able to secure. There was no justification for conducting the West Bengal elections with over 91 lakh deletions from the rolls and 27 lakh appeals from excluded voters remaining undecided. These huge numbers cast a shadow on the accuracy and reliability of the process followed. The Supreme Court, however, declined to stay the conduct of the elections. The least the Honourable Court could have done was to allow those persons to vote whose appeals were pending. The special revision cannot be considered as completed until these appeals are disposed of, and hence the existing electoral roll containing their names continues to be in force.
The Election Commission’s constitutional mandate is to superintend, direct, and control elections. It cannot assume functions outside the conduct of elections, which are governed by distinct legal regimes.
The citizenship law is administered by the Home Ministry of the Government of India. It is for that Ministry to lay down the legal procedures with appropriate safeguards and to prescribe the documents to be relied upon to establish a person’s citizenship. The Election Commission is exceeding its powers by creating a separate procedure for determining citizenship. While the Commission is not the final authority to pronounce on the question of citizenship, its scrutiny can cast a shadow on a person’s legal status, thereby impinging on his fundamental rights.
There is widespread apprehension among the Muslims in West Bengal that the BJP’s plan for a Citizenship Register is being brought in through the back door, raising the spectre of foreigners’ tribunals and an indefinite existence in limbo.
Imposing additional burden of proof on persons whose names are already included in the existing electoral rolls, revised from time to time by the same Election Commission, is to disown its own actions.
India adopted universal adult suffrage from its very inception, unlike many Western countries, where the right came incrementally to different sections of their citizens over extended periods of time. The universal right to vote, irrespective of gender, caste, community, and class, has been a powerful unifying force in nation-building in India. In successive elections, all-out efforts were made to increase voter participation, especially of women and the disadvantaged sections. The SIR, whether intended or not, may in effect lead to mass disenfranchisement, as the poor, the illiterate, and other disadvantaged sections of society will find it difficult to satisfy the documentary demands placed on the voter to establish eligibility.
The world’s largest democracy may be plagued by many ills, many of its institutions may be failing, but the people have been looking up to the Election Commission as a beacon of hope for ensuring that the people’s true will is reflected in every election. Many past Chief Election Commissioners have brought glory to the institution by taming corrupt politicians and standing up to political interference to ensure free and fair elections. People’s faith in our fragile democracy will be irretrievably lost if that hope is belied.
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