Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls, initiated by the Election Commission of India in Bihar a month ago, concluded its first phase on Friday. The exercise has a country-wide range, but the election bound state is the start. Out of nearly 7.90 crore electors on the existing electoral roll, enumeration forms of 7.23 crore have been received; these names are likely to be included in the draft electoral roll, scheduled to be published on 1 August. This has been a gigantic task for field functionaries, especially for Booth Level Officers deployed across 77,895 polling booths.
They had statutory and administrative support from 243 Electoral Registration Officers, about 3,000 Assistant EROs and 38 District Election Officers, typically all the District Magistrates, besides one lakh volunteers. This machinery deserves applause, having delivered against a tight timeline that caused anxiety to many, and despite the noise and protests around them. According to the EC, the process has identified 22 lakh dead electors, seven lakh cases of multiple registrations and 35 lakh permanently migrated or not traceable. The Commission takes satisfaction from the fact that 99.8 per cent of Bihar electors have been covered in the SIR outreach.
Enumeration forms of only about 1.2 lakh electors remain to be received. In a way, the discovery of over 60 lakh invisible voters provides the first justification for the SIR. This removal is also the main concern of those who challenge SIR, leading to the reaffirmation by the Commission that its constitutional and democratic duty is to prevent fake voting in the name of the dead, shifted, duplicated electors and foreigners. ECI has been simultaneously hammering on the point that Bihar SIR will make sure that no eligible voter is left out. What needs to be underlined is that the quantity of final deletion is yet to be arrived at. For the whole of August, any elector or political party can ask for inclusion of any left out but eligible elector.
Complaints on exclusion of anyone eligible or inclusion of anyone ineligible will be examined in full public view. The final electoral roll, the foundation for assembly election in Bihar, will be published on 30 September, though the aggrieved can still appeal to district magistrates and the Chief Electoral Officer under Section 24 of the RP Act, 1950. Election savvy political parties, despite opposition to SIR by some of them, have found it useful to sufficiently increase the presence of their Booth Level Agents in their own interest. Number of such agents has mounted to 1.6 lakh. Under existing laws, timing and manner of revision of electoral roll are the preserve of Election Commission, as the conduct of election is. The Supreme Court did not take any time to underline this fact in its last hearing. The apex court was concerned about the feasibility of implementation of SIR. The completion of the first phase may now engage its notice.
The Court had asked the ECI to also consider Aadhaar, ration card and electoral photo identity card as documents for validation of post 2003 entrants in the electoral roll. There has been debate on the feasibility, desirability or even legality of seeking documents from electors. By stating that the eleven documents prescribed by it are only indicative, and not exhaustive, EC has demonstrated flexibility on the contentious issue. It is to be seen if the Supreme Court nudges ECI further in this direction. More than anything, eligibility confirmation of electors including the aspect of citizenship will depend on honest transactions of field officials with citizens, with EC underwriting the integrity of the entire process.
The stated purpose of SIR is to make sure that ’all eligible citizens are included in the Electoral Roll’ and ‘no ineligible voter is included in the electoral rolls.’ This intention is no different from that in any revision of roll any time, annually or just before the general elections. The difference is in degree of application; an ordinary analogy will be antibiotics for alleviation of sickness and surgery for rooting out the same. Whether the need is for antibiotics or surgery falls in the court of EC, and it has taken a call. SIR has raised eyebrows and seen court cases and protests. Besides logistic facilitation and citizen mobilization, ECI has the duty to answer questions from stakeholders, justified or not.
But all these together do not make a roll revision wrong. It looks like ECI has chosen to stay on its determined course with attention focused on Article 326 of the constitution that describes the eligibility criteria for a place in the electoral roll: citizenship of India, 18 years of age and ordinary residency in the constituency. Successful collection of enumeration forms from over seventy-two million electors and segregated identification of another 65 lakh in nonqualified category should give election managers the confidence to take the mission to its logical conclusion in Bihar. Comfort of citizens and of political parties in the ground process are part of the priority, which ECI and all stakeholders will certainly not ignore.
(The writer is former Director General, Election Commission of India. The views expressed are personal.)