7 months ago
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The Election Commission of India has dismissed apprehensions of “mass disenfranchisement” triggered by the ongoing peculiar intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, telling the Supreme Court that specified allegations are an effort to “politicise” the exercise.
The palmy completion of the SIR successful Bihar was impervious that accusations of the en masse deletion of voters were mendacious and speculative, the EC submitted successful the Supreme Court.
“The workout [SIR] is aimed astatine purification of electoral roll. The allegation of wide disenfranchisement levelled by petitioners is an effort to politicise the workout to service vested governmental interests, and, arsenic has been proven by the palmy implementation of SIR successful Bihar, untenable,” the EC maintained.
‘SIR is simply a caller signifier of NRC’
The petitioners see the Association for Democratic Reforms, represented by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, arsenic good arsenic governmental parties and leaders from States similar Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. They person termed the SIR arsenic a “de novo National Registration of Citizens (NRC)”, successful which the load is connected the elector to beryllium her Indian citizenship successful bid to beryllium included successful the electoral roll.
The EC insisted that the SIR was a “cooperative and participatory exercise” involving each stakeholders, including electors and governmental parties.
“The engagement of booth level agents and volunteers from the aforesaid constituency arsenic the electoral; behaviour of house-to-house visits by booth level officers; filing of claims and objections are each features which impact the information and practice of electoral and governmental parties to guarantee the SIR workout is successfully implemented,” the EC said successful its caller affidavit.
‘No request for societal audit’
The canvass assemblage described the features of the SIR, peculiarly the claims-and-objections signifier arsenic a benignant of “social audit”. These features, the EC reasoned, let electors the “power to initiate enquiry against immoderate erroneous introduction successful the draught electoral roll”.
Taking the lawsuit of Bihar, it said the draught rotation on with the database of 65 lakh radical “who did not taxable enumeration forms” were provided to governmental parties astatine the State, district, and booth levels on with reasons for non-submission. The accusation had besides been disseminated online and done societal media handles. The draught database and the database of excluded persons were besides posted extracurricular artifact improvement offices and panchayat bhavans.
In fact, these steps were taken by the EC connected the ground of a judicial bid passed by the Supreme Court connected August 14.
The EC said it would replicate these measures successful the 2nd signifier of the SIR presently underway crossed 12 States and Union Territories, covering implicit 50 crore people. It dismissed the petitioners’ thought of a societal audit.
“The SIR bid of October 27, 2025 contemplates the posting of each details crossed each booths, artifact improvement offices and websites. There is nary request to behaviour immoderate further societal audit,” the EC assured them.
