Electoral roll revision is a pretext to snatch citizenship

It appears that Bihar is the first step in a nationwide process that looks no different than an attempt to compile a National Register of Citizens (NRC)

Impervious to protests registered by opposition parties, on July 3, the Election Commission of India (ECI) expressed its resolve to complete the special intensive revision (SIR) of the election rolls in Bihar, before the Assembly elections there.

The election watchdog will potentially disenfranchise millions of voters in Bihar on the most specious of pretexts, preliminary to rolling out a similar programme in West Bengal, which will have to constitute a new Assembly by May. Iterating the ECI’s resolve, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said implementation was proceeding on schedule and despite apprehensions, ‘all eligible persons’ would be included. He also cited constitutional and legislative provisions to assert the necessity of this drastic revision in rolls.

On June 24, the ECI announced that all new applicants for the franchise and voters registered after the last SIR in 2003-2004 would have to submit a self-attested declaration that they were Indian citizens by birth or naturalisation, with documentary proof of place and date of birth or certificate of naturalisation. From the outset, it was made clear that Bihar is the first step in a nationwide process that looks no different than an attempt to compile a National Register of Citizens (NRC).

But, as so often is the case, the devil lies in the details — in this case, the definition. Thus, what does ‘eligible’ mean, and what precise documentation is required? Given that the ECI has been prevaricating for about a fortnight, we need a blow-by-blow account.

In the initial announcement, the ECI said that since the last SIR was undertaken in Bihar in 2003, the electoral rolls of that year would be treated as ‘probative evidence of eligibility, including presumption of citizenship’. Thus, this is clearly as much an NRC exercise as it is an enfranchisement/disenfranchisement process.

An important question relates to what presumptions underlie the status of those who have registered as voters since 2003 and voted in myriad elections? Are we to assume that many of them could not just have been ineligible to exercise their franchise but could have been non-citizens as well?

The ECI has conducted SIRs 13 times, with the last time being in 2004. Why has it taken 21 years to conduct an exercise that has been normally undertaken every few years, with the exception of a 17-year gap between 1966 and 1983? Whatever the compulsions, why is it that once the ECI decided to undertake the exercise, it set a deadline that is impractical, to say the least? The Bihar SIR began on June 28, and the final rolls will be published on September 30: three months have been allowed to jump through seven hoops.

The exercise that is being rammed through in Bihar will not just disenfranchise voters, which can be corrected, but deprive them of their citizenship, a condition that will usually be unalterable.

As opposition parties lit into the ECI’s unilateral decision, it announced on June 26 that an SIR would be conducted in West Bengal between July and November: a five-month rush job, the ultimate goal of which is troubling.

Opposition party representatives met the ECI members on July 2, to no avail. The watchdog reiterated on June 28 and July 1 that the 2003 rolls would be exempt from scrutiny, but had nothing to say about a Trinamool Congress suggestion that the rolls used for the 2024 general elections be made the baseline eligibility criterion. It’s a no-brainer.

The ECI has claimed in its circular and elsewhere an inclusive goal, but the numbers don’t lie: Bihar has an estimated 79 million-odd voters, while the 2003 roll includes only 49 million. In Bihar alone, thus, 30 million people’s franchise and citizenship will be scrutinised, which brings us to a category of voters who are numerous in Bihar and West Bengal, especially: migrant voters.

The ECI has said that people will be entitled to vote in places where they are ordinarily resident rather than where they own a house. Migrant workers from these states preponderantly travel back and forth from their homes to workplaces, often following the agricultural cycles. Where will they vote? How will they do the paperwork, which will supposedly be sent to them and involve online access?

Whether or not bogus voters were added in short order on a significant scale in Maharashtra and Haryana last year is an open question, but it does appear that Bihar and West Bengal will experience significant disenfranchisement, not to say loss of citizenship. There is a partisan agenda at work, but, critically, the poor and marginalised will be victimised.

Suhit K Sen is author of ‘The Paradox of Populism: The Indira Gandhi Years, 1966-1977’.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.