On Saturday, the Election Commission of India issued its first clarification after Indian Express reports uncovered stark irregularities in the Commission’s functioning and its refusal to act on requests from its own officers and, more troublingly, members of the Commission itself. The press note that was released following a meeting in which all three election commissioners attended, however, does not deny the reports of serious irregularities in the Commission’s functioning, which has now led to this, and instead only suggests remedial measures, which, in other words, is an admission that they messed up, perhaps deliberately so.
Among the measures suggested, the Commission has said that in case existing voters are flagged for being unmapped or for logical discrepancies, the BLOs will visit the homes of such voters and collect their documents to upload on the system for a decision to be taken by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). Furthermore, the Commission’s press note is silent on those who have had appeals decided in their favour and who, despite requests from the DEOs and CEOs, were unable to restore the names because the system would not allow them to do so. All that the Commission has said is that those who are left out of the roll will have the opportunity to re-register as voters through the Commission’s continuous enrollment process.
This isn’t the solution that the affected parties are looking for. Instead, it’s just a band-aid designed to hide deeper injury. The affected parties are seeking the inclusion of their name in the SIR list. Not having your names in the SIR list could have implications down the line, as people who do not have, or cannot trace a blood relative’s name to the 2002 SIR list, are finding out now. Furthermore, those who are made to register as new voters for no fault of their own will lose their ‘history’ of having been registered on the rolls and will now be included as new, first-time voters with a new voter ID and EPIC number. It certainly feels like erasure, and one of the few documents that could prove one’s residence and participation as an active citizen in past elections is wiped clean.
More than that, however, Form 6, which is a form for the inclusion of a name in the voter list, includes a mandatory declaration that the applicant needs to state that either they are signing up as a first-time voter or that they are signing up as a voter having shifted from another constituency. In the case of people who have been wrongly deleted from the voter rolls, there is no third option to state that they are ‘re-entering’ the rolls. In offering Form 6 as a solution to the problem that their own systems enabled, the ECI is forcing applicants to make a false declaration that they are first-time voters.
A false declaration on a government document usually amounts to perjury, and applicants can be prosecuted for it. Why should the voter bear the burden when the fault clearly lies with the Election Commission of India? More than that, however, what the Election Commission of India has failed to address is the issue of accountability. Lakhs of people across several states have been illegitimately denied the right to vote in elections that suspiciously tilted towards the BJP. The officers who enabled this cannot be allowed to go scot-free and must be held accountable for enabling and encouraging the unrestrained assault on Indian democracy.
