A new joint platform comprising farmers, workers, women, youth among others, named People Against SIR, on Wednesday demanded an “outright rejection” of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a day before a five-judge Independent Commission on SIR starts an in-camera hearing of voter testimonies in the Capital.
“There will be no support to ‘fixing’ SIR, instead we stand firmly together for an outright rejection and annulment of SIR,” the platform, which was formed on Wednesday, said in a press statement issued from Surjeet Bhavan.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) did not respond to the platform’s demands till the time of filing this report. The SIR is a drive to verify and update electoral rolls, and it has become a flashpoint between the ECI and opposition parties and civil society groups. “Remove & Prosecute Gyanesh! Reset Our Voter List!” is the platform’s central slogan. It also wants no further elections on the basis of the SIR voter list. The list of states named in the release is Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Besides, it sought an overhaul of the process for selecting ECI members, including rules on tenure. It also demanded a reversal of all orders issued to launch the SIR, including those relating to ration cards, government schemes and detention. It also demanded the ECI stop asking questions on citizenship during voter verification. The platform’s wider agenda goes beyond the SIR.
The platform alleged the exercise is illegal and demanded the voter lists be reset to their pre-2024 version and updated through social audits as laid down in the Election Commission Manual and CAG guidelines. The pre-2024 list, it said, should be the base for any public audit and updating.
The platform said it will submit the findings of its public audits of voter lists to the panel. All state elections held on the basis of the SIR should be annulled,” the release said. The platform also demanded that the ECINET app be made open source so that it can be “publicly audited”. “All SIR related docs on decision making” should be placed on public record, the platform said. It said it will “strongly resist” delimitation, a caste census, a demographic survey and the One Nation One Election plan. These, it said, threaten the integrity of electoral democracy, and called for electoral reforms instead.
The hearing was proposed by the Lawyers’ Association for Constitution. The commission also includes Justice AK Patnaik, Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, Justice Rekha Sharma and Justice Anjana Prakash. The Independent Commission, chaired by Justice Madan Lokur, is scheduled to hold the closed-door hearing on Thursday from 9am to 1.30pm at Jawahar Bhawan.
It will hear grievances relating to the SIR, according to a notice issued by the commission’s secretariat.
