E-Paper
Bihar electoral roll revision: Concerns persist as party reps meet ECI
The ECI has said an electoral roll revision was last held in Bihar in 2003 and underlined it has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only citizens are on it
Concerns persisted even as representatives of 11 parties, including the Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), met top Election Commission of India (ECI) officials to oppose the special intensive revision of the electoral roll in poll-bound Bihar.
RJD lawmaker Manoj Jha said that the two-and-a-half-hour meeting with chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, and commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, on Wednesday was not cordial, and the reflection that should have accompanied their concerns was absent. He called the revision a conspiracy to “displace” tens of thousands of people in Bihar. “...It is also a question of Bihar’s identity. You have set out to find doubtful voters in Bihar, and that reveals your intentions…”
Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi called the revision a violation of the level playing field. He added that if voters are left out, it would be an insult to the Constitution’s basic structure.
The ECI has said an electoral roll revision was last held in Bihar in 2003, which covered nearly 50 million people, underlining it has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only citizens are on it.
It instructed the electoral registration officers to treat the 2003 electoral roll as “probative evidence of eligibility, including presumption of citizenship unless they receive any other input otherwise.”
Singhvi noted that 22 years have passed since 2003 and questioned whether all the elections held during this time were wrong and not according to the rules. “If you had to conduct an intensive revision, why announce it in June? They could have done it after January. The documents you [ECI) are asking for over the last decade have been Aadhaar and ration card.”
He said now one needs a birth certificate, and documents of the father and mother. “Migrants, already suffering from floods, will keep running around for documents.”
Singhvi said a level playing field has for decades been the foundation of elections. “Those who are on the voter list [and] without documents will find themselves deprived of their right to vote.”
He said the backward communities will have to run around, without documents, despite their names being on the list. “This is a violation of the level playing field because it is the foundation of any election and a republic, which in turn is the basis of the basic structure of the Constitution. Any insult to this [voting right] will be an insult to the basic structure.”
Jha echoed Singhvi and said they raised the concerns of Bihar’s poor, downtrodden, backward, Dalit, and Muslim communities. “We submitted how this is…an attempt to displace people; a conspiracy to remove them from the voter roll…If the purpose of any exercise shifts from inclusion to exclusion, what can we say?”
He questioned the rationale for repeating something done 22 years ago. “There was no answer. Are your employees equipped? No response. What will happen if issues arise within a month? The criteria you use to measure eligibility....most people do not have those documents.”
Jha said he was referring to those lacking sufficient belongings. “These are poor people enduring both drought and floods, and in the midst of this, you demand documents within a month. If your [ECI] intention is to displace people on a large scale, this story would not end here. There will be a flood on the streets, too.”
He called the right to vote the most important right. “...one vote, one value, whether it is an industrialist or a landless farmer. If you are [ECI] tampering with that right at someone’s behest… I hope the ECI reads the writing on the wall.”
Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said that the ECI brought up Maharashtra, where Rahul Gandhi has alleged industrial-scale voter rigging, to justify the exercise in Bihar.
“The Commission did not say anything about why there was no prior consultation. For the people of Bihar, this is like notebandi [demonetisation]...they call it votebandi [restricting voting]. They [ECI] did not even indicate expanding the list of documents supporting eligibility, although they may consider something at a later stage.”
Bhattacharya said they made all the points, but the ECI did not say anything. “...these are no concerns [for ECI]. The voting right itself is at stake.”
The ECI said the concerns of the political parties were fully addressed and maintained that the revision was being conducted as per the Constitution. “The Commission thanked all political parties for appointing more than 1.5 lakh [150,000] Booth Level Agents (BLAs) at the ground level for participating in the SIR [special intensive revision] exercise. ...thanked all political parties for actively participating in the SIR process so that no eligible voter is left out.”
On June 24, the ECI announced the revision, emphasising the need to clean the electoral roll due to rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, increasing numbers of first-time voters, non-reporting of deaths, and the inclusion of names of undocumented foreigners.
