EC says zero objections against SIR, Bihar Left leader calls it "big lie"

CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya on August 5 termed as a "big lie" the Election Commission's assertion that "all political parties put together have filed 'Zero' Claims and Objections" for the addition and deletion of names from the draft Electoral Rolls published on August 1 after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). 

The draft electoral roll in Bihar drawn up after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) saw the elimination of over 65 lakh voters who had voted in the last Lok Sabha polls.

"For any of these deletions, whether on grounds of death or permanent migration or duplication, the EC has not entertained any complaints," Dipankar said while delivering the 24th Narendran Memorial lecture on 'Bihar: Trial Run for Mass Disenfranchisement' in Thiruvananthapuram on August 5.

"What the EC has said is that those whose names are not on the list should fill and submit Form 6," he said. The EC's Form 6 is 'Application Form for New Voters'. "This means those who have been deleted will have to apply afresh for their inclusion in the electoral roll, and which people are doing.  I don't know on what basis they are saying (there has been no complaints), because they have basically shut the door to complain," Dipankar said. 

"They say what is there to complain. If you have been eliminated, you are eliminated. If you think you are entitled to be an elector, apply afresh. So every Form 6 that will be submitted in Bihar now should be seen as an objection, as a complaint to the Election Commission. It is not that people are taking it lying down, people are fighting," he added. 

Nonetheless, he said that political parties had also come up with a lot of complaints pointing out anomalies and, in fact, these had been sent to the Bihar election office. "We have already come across so many cases where people are alive and they have been declared dead or people are very much in Bihar but have been declared as having permanently migrated from Bihar," Dipankar said.

'Untrustworthy' Aadhar and ration cards
The SIR presumes that all names on the 2003 Bihar electoral roll are Indian citizens, but requires the nearly 5 crore voters added in subsequent rolls to prove their citizenship using a list of 11 specified documents.

This list, however, does not have three easily available documents: Aadhar, Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC), and ration card. Despite the Supreme Court urging their inclusion, the Commission rejected them as "untrustworthy." The irony, Dipankar pointed out, is that several "trusted" documents- such as residence or caste certificates- are themselves issued based on Aadhaar.

He added that most documents the EC insists on- birth certificates, passports, employee ID cards, matriculation certificates, and land or property papers- are rarely available to voters in Bihar. 

Forget passports, even matriculation certificates are largely unheard of in Bihar. He noted that only about 15 per cent of the state's population has completed matriculation. Land ownership papers are virtually nonexistent. "In Bihar, land is divided and transferred on trust, not through documentation," Dipankar said.

SIR and migrant workers
Migrant workers are the most affected by the SIR exercise. 

"Because of chronically pervasive and acute poverty, lack of stable and secure jobs and abysmally low level of wages, the working people of Bihar are compelled to seek livelihood outside the state in ever-increasing numbers," Dipankar said. "But now, the EC considers them not 'ordinarily resident' of Bihar and declares them as having permanently moved away from the state. They are the biggest contingent of Bihar electors who are facing mass exclusion from the electoral roll," Dipankar said.

Creation of doubtful voters
Dipankar warned that even the 7.24 lakh electors in Bihar who appear in the draft list and submitted enumeration forms face the risk of disenfranchisement.

Once it was clear that electors would not be able to supply the documents before the deadline of July 26, the EC allowed them to first submit the enumeration form and provide identification later.

The two-page form collects basic details such as date of birth, names of parents and spouse, and mobile number. Aadhaar and EPIC numbers are optional. It also includes a declaration asking whether the applicant was born before July 1987, between July 1, 1987 and December 2, 2004, or after that.

"The EC is aware that large numbers will not be able to submit documents. The electoral registration officer (ERO) who has been tasked with the preparation of electoral rolls will have discretionary powers to decide on these cases on the basis of a local investigation. The arbitrariness built into this whole process and the possibilities of bias and manipulation are obvious and ominous," Dipankar said.

This could lead to the exclusion of a large number of electors whose enumeration forms were not approved by booth-level officers (BLOs). Citing Darbhanga district in Bihar as an example, Dipankar noted that while the district had around 30 lakh voters before the SIR, about two lakh were marked as dead, shifted, or duplicate entries. Additionally, nearly three lakh forms lacked BLO recommendation, which Dipankar calls a "waiting list for eventual deletion."

He likened these electors to the D-voters or 'doubtful voters', a category introduced during the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam. "Their voting rights had been suspended and some of them had been put in detention centres and some singled out for deportation," Dipankar said. Bihar electors not recommended by the BLOs could suffer a similar fate.