Misconceptions About SIR

Introduction

Since last revision of electoral role back in 2011, lot of duplicates and unwanted names due to persons' death, migration to cities, name in electoral roles of two or more places have been noted. Election Commission of India (ECI) noted this discrepancy and launched Special Intensive Revision of electoral roles across the country. As a result, a large number of names have been deleted from electoral list, resulting in lot of resistance from political parties.

Special Intensive Revision (SIT)

As the name envisages, this is quick revision of electoral roles, ahead of upcoming elections in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, etc. The ECI found lot of discrepancies in the electoral roles due to complete inaction of State Election Commissions in different states. The Election Commission of India took the cognizance of this and decided to do its quick revision. The ECI appointed employees of local governments in the respective states to visit each household and enumerate the list of voters. They have been given a last date to complete the enumeration for preparing a draft for scrutiny. 

During the scrutiny, a large number of discrepancies have been found, forcing ECI to filter out irrelevant names from the roles. People whose names have found in the discrepancy list are being givennotices asking them why their names should not be removed from the list with in a turn around time for response. If the explanations are found to be satisfactory, their names are retained in the draft list. Other names are either removed totally or struck down in one of the places where their names are found. This has created a lot of discontent amongst political parties.

Growing Discontent

All the political parties have been traditionally relying on vote banks. Incifently, the Special Intensive Revision has disfranchised a large number of people from these vote banks. The political parties fully know this and have started protesting against SIR. They allege that the Election Commission is doing this at the behest of the Central Government. They claim that the chief election commissioner Dyanesh Kumar has compromised the integrity of the statutory body the election commission to please the government at the center. They have started approaching people asking them to boycott the Special Intensive Revision exercise.

The political parties have begun approaching the Supreme Court of India seeking relief and restraint the ECI from rolling out final electoral role for each state and union territory. The apex court declined to intervene stating that it cannot ask the Election Commission to hold the rollout of the final list. The Supreme Court.observed that the ECI is functioning within the limit prescribed the Indian constitution. Failing to get the expected relief, these political parties have begun accusing the Central Government for this. The parties have their cadre working at the grassroot level to carry this view to the public to elicit support for them.

Government Response

The incumbent central government led by Barathiya Janata Party (BJP) has time and again stated that it has nothing to do with the steps taken Election Commission to cleanse the electoral roles before conducting free and fair elections in some states. It pointed out some states have seen state elections where draft list has been published without any complaint. The chief election commissioner has convened a number of press briefings stating the commission's stand on this matter. 

The incumbent BJP government at the center washed its hand off the allegations leveled by opposition parties that it is dictating terms with the Election Commission to its advantage. It has told in clear terms that Election Commission is a statutory, constitutional body which can take independent decision to ensure free and fair elections. It further added that the government cannot and will not interfere in the working of poll body. Despite this, political parties led by Indian National Congress is trying its level best to tarnish the images of both central government and the ECI.