Politics over the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of electoral rolls is becoming increasingly bitter. The Congress has stepped up its attack on the ECI (Election Commission of India) and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, while the INDIA bloc is preparing to coordinate its response. Members of the INDIA bloc also held a strategic meeting on the same issue in New Delhi on September 30.
Technical explanations released after controversies erupt are not enough. Both ECI and SIR processes are also under legal scrutiny with the top courts questioning its functioning recently. Meanwhile, BJP has accused Congress for targeting ECI, with party leaders stating that Congress should be introspecting its defeats. Mitigating the controversy to yet another Congress-versus-BJP clash misses the larger issue. Electoral rolls belong to citizens, not political parties. The EC is a constitutional institution, not an arm of either the government or the opposition. If doubts about the SIR process are allowed to persist, the damage will extend beyond any one election or political party. It will affect public confidence in the electoral system itself. If names have been removed, citizens should know why. If a voter is flagged for verification, there should be a clear, accessible mechanism to establish eligibility. If political parties have raised objections, the data and methodology necessary to examine those objections should be made available within the limits of privacy and election law. If there have been errors, they should be acknowledged and corrected promptly. The Centre, meanwhile, should resist the temptation to make this a purely political defence of the EC. The BJP’s argument that the Congress should introspect over its defeats is a legitimate political response, but it does not answer questions about electoral administration. A party can lose an election and still raise a valid institutional question. Most importantly, the EC itself must communicate directly with citizens. The commission should proactively explain the legal basis of SIR, the criteria being applied, the safeguards against wrongful deletion and the mechanisms available to voters who believe they have been wrongly excluded.
Because it concerns an important democratic issue, conversely, an allegation made by an Opposition party does not automatically become true merely. On September 28, the Calcutta High Court pulled up EC over its handling of a party poll symbol dispute between two factions of Trinamool Congress, and went on to suggest ‘connivance’ between the poll panel and one of the disputing parties.
