AA Edit | Bona fide Voters Should Be On SIR Rolls

The Supreme Court’s insistence that it will not allow impediments in the process of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state amounts to sidestepping the key issue — the right of a voter to exercise their franchise.

It is curious that the court’s observation has come after it noticed that the Election Commission is using very restrictive software tools in the SIR process in the state. The reference to the “restrictive tool” goes very well with its earlier advice to the EC to make the process an inclusive one, and not exclusive. The gist of the state government’s complaint is that the poll panel does not follow the SC’s advice and instead comes up with untenable terminologies to strip people of their right to be on the roll. The EC was of the view that more than six offspring in a family, a difference of less than 15 years or more than 50 years between the parents and the children and different spellings of names when written in different languages were logical discrepancies and removed such people from the list. And the apex court itself had pointed out that the so-called logical discrepancies are not exactly discrepancies and that they reflect the ground realities of Indian life. In its latest hearing, the court pointed out more such examples.

The EC’s latest complaint that the state government had not provided it with adequate staff in fact exposes the agenda it has in the state. The EC is in the process of revising the electoral rolls, and it must be done by qualified people. That the EC was going ahead with the process without them, and that it had not approached the Supreme Court against the so-called “non-cooperation” of the state government, all point to the fact that the constitutional body was going to complete its task with or without mistakes. There cannot be a more irresponsible approach to one of its most critical duties.

Yet the Supreme Court’s direction to the EC to complete the process after training the 8,500-odd Group B officers the state government has now placed at the disposal of the EC hardly addresses the issue. The vague generalities and obvious solutions without going into the specifics cannot settle the complaints of the voters who have knocked on the doors of the highest court of the land to keep their precious right to vote in a democracy intact. The apex court must instead look into the genesis of the illogical discrepancies the EC discovers in the process. It should not miss the point that the EC deals with crores of voters but has still failed to understand the ground realities of Indian life and called them “logical discrepancies” whereas the judges sitting on the bench comprehended them instantaneously. It cannot be an accident.

The SC has extended the time for finalising the SIR process by one week on Monday, which may help resolve the issue for the time being but it will be doing justice to the people of the state if it keeps its eyes and ears open to the developments in the state and ensures that every bona fide voter finds a place on the list.