Dr Duggaraju Srinivasa Rao
Now that the Supreme Court gave the green signal for the Election Commission of India (ECI) proposed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and asked the concerned state governments not to interfere with the process and even warned of action against the state government who are pressurising Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to act in a particular political way, as is happening in Bengal, the SIR should go unhindered. But such a happy ending for SIR is not in sight as the political opponents of NDA continue to call for discontinuance of SIR as they believe that religion centric deletions of names is the intention of that exercise.
Art. 326 of Indian constitution envisaged voting by only eligible Indian voters and ECI is mandated for revision and verification of electoral rolls. Parties opposing the SIR is missing the point that mere verification and updates is not malicious and disenfranchisement or targeting any particular voter or a group. It is a purification of voters list that is necessary and periodically done by ECI during all these years. It is the political trust deficiency between the ruling and opposition which is making the opposition to target ECI. Parties fail to understand that the SIR is a huge task in vast country like ours with inherent difficulties in ascertaining the nationality more so when borders are porous and language spoken by the people is the same on either side of the border. ECI is doing the onerous task of excluding the ineligible persons while ensuring that no eligible citizen is excluded from the list.
Bihar has passed the SIR test. Over 7.5 crore entries were verified in that state using the services of booth level officers including the booth level assistants deputed by the political parties and supreme court designated legal services authority personal. A total of 65 lakh electors were removed and draft list of voters was published. Over 2.5 lakh objections were received after the publication of rolls and out of which only 36,500 were claims for inclusion. Not a single appeal was filed against any deletion. This proves that SIR exercise was done with near perfection and that was reflected in the enthusiastic participation of voters and zero complaint on the missing in voters list on their names.
Such a successful exercise grounded in careful manner with transparent methodology and accountable scrutiny in Bihar, the other states where the SIR exercise is announced should have welcomed the ECI actions and cooperated. But unfortunately the political narrative of ‘biased ECI’ is spread and their party cadre are incited in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala by Mamata Banerjee, M.K. Stalin and Pinarayi Vijayan respectively.
West Bengal is a state where illegal migration across border is routinely allowed and those illegal people were used as the vote bank by political parties. Media reports of people of Bangladesh origin working and enjoying state government social benefits going back to their native country as they fear imminent arrest once SIR is on. While that voluntary return to home country is happening, it is unfortunate that the ruling TMC in Bengal is opposing the SIR. In fact the illegal Bangladesh people are a burden on the state and as such Mamata Banerjee should feel happy that her government funds will be saved by SIR. For retaining the power, using the non-Indian voters is a sin and is against the democratic spirit and any party committing such a sin has no right to stake claim to power in the state. The Bangladesh illegal migrants spread across the country with the assistance of religious network and are employed in many fields for a lesser pay compared to the locals. They are competing with limited resources available and are politically patronised. Stories of illegal Bangladeshi people dominating the society, with their violence prone background, in Bengal’s border districts is documented.
Tamil Nadu and Kerala may not have such a large scale immigrants and may not have numbers to tilt the electoral fortunes of the parties. In such a situation those two states should have welcomed the SIR as the new verified electoral rolls will add more weight to their political victory. Rational thinking has given way to manufactured threatening posture for consolidating the minority community votes in their favour. For the short term political gain the long term national interests are bartered and that is the tragedy in India.
Unfortunately ECI is under attack, the Chief Electoral Commissioner (CEC) being the prime target, including the parliament floor threats from Rahul Gandhi, for doing a constitutionally mandated job. Once completed, SIR and judicial scrutiny is done, elections completed the ECI will come out with flying colours with its reputation of impartiality intact.
(Author is retired professor. Views expressed are personal.)
