Parliament to debate electoral reforms on Tuesday; what you need to know about SIR, 'vote chori' allegations and more

The discussion will include a discussion over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of India’s voter rolls.

The Lok Sabha is set for a fiery debate on Tuesday over the electoral reforms with Leader of Opposition in the House, Rahul Gandhi, leading the charge, while BJP chief J P Nadda is expected to lead the Union government's arguments. Union Law Minister Arjun Meghwal scheduled to reply on Wednesday.

The discussion will be on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of India’s voter rolls.

What is Special Intensive Revision?

This is the second phase of what the Election Commission calls the voters' clean-up exercise. The process is being conducted across nine states and three Union Territories, including poll-bound Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

A total of 51 crore voters are being covered in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep.

This exercise follows a similar process conducted in Bihar, prior to the Assembly election earlier this year.

Why is the SIR being conducted?

The ECI has described the SIR as a large-scale verification exercise required to address “legacy data" issues that routine annual revisions can no longer correct.

Over the last two decades, dead or shifted voters have not been deleted, leading to possible duplicate registrations, and elector counts rising faster than projected populations.

According to the ECI, the primary goal of SIR is to delete the names of illegal immigrants from electoral rolls in India. This comes amid the crackdown on illegal immigrants from predominantly Bangladesh and Myanmar in the recent times.

The ongoing SIR is the ninth such exercise since independence. The last time it was conducted was in 2002-04. For the cut-off, the previous SIR in the state will be taken.

Under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the ECI has the authority to order such an intensive revision when it believes existing rolls contain inaccuracies.

Why the opposition and discussion?

Opposition parties including the Congress, DMK and TMC have criticised the exercise.

Gandhi has repeatedly claimed electoral fraud through the process. He made it the basis of the Voter Adhikar Yatra across Bihar, alleging that the Election Commission was acting under government pressure.

“This is a conspiracy to strike opposition voters off electoral rolls,” Congress leaders claimed, tying it to their larger accusation that “BJP victories since 2014 were facilitated by vote fraud.”

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has called the process as “vote theft scheme” designed to favour the BJP.

In a letter to his party workers, Stalin said, SIR was being “used to remove the names of voters from marginalised sections — minorities, Scheduled Castes, women, and the poor — from the rolls.”

He said that the DMK would challenge the process both “legally and through people’s protest.”

In West Bengal, the TMC has accused the BJP of using SIR to “manipulate voter lists under the pretext of identifying illegal infiltrators.”

What will the Parliament debate focus on?

Rahul Gandhi is expected to talk on the alleged vote theft and the accountability of the ECI.

With the Opposition repeatedly accusing the government of discrepancies in voter rolls, including large-scale deletions, duplicate entries and the distortions in electoral procedures, the debate will also focus on India's democratic procedures. These issues were raised by Gandhi in various press conferences in Maharashtra, Haryana and Karnataka.

Further, the Congress is expected to discuss about the pressure on Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during the SIR process.

Opposition parties have accused the ECI of inhumane demands on field workers, citing reports of alleged suicides due to stress and heavy workload.