ECI’s Bengal SIR whimsical

Amid West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s apprehension of mass exclusion of genuine voters in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, the Supreme Court said it would not allow anyone to create an impediment in the exercise.On record, the ECI officials deny that the hearing process under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal has disproportionately targeted Muslims. However, a primary reason why many Muslim voters are facing difficulties in the SIR documentation process is that long-standing economic hardships and lack of access to education have made documentation errors common in the community.

 On ground, the ECI is running SIR in West Bengal with sweeping, unfettered discretion. It authorised handpicked personnel to supersede the legally designated officers responsible for voter verification. Complaints to this effect have fallen on deaf ears. Rules are changed without public notice, and an ever-morphing software dictates terms to officers.The fact that the saffron party is manipulating the SIR is reflected in the words of West Bengal LoP and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, who claimed that the deletion of names of fake voters following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls will defeat TMC.

In Bengal the ECI is working with impunity, against all prescribed norms. WhatsApp messages and oral commands replaced written regulations. The statutory decision-making authorities were either turned into rubber stamps or rendered powerless intermediaries.
What adds to the doubtful nature of the exercise is that none of these intermittent orders of ECI were made public.It may be added that in a case challenging the constitutionality of the SIR, the ECI has told the Supreme Court repeatedly that, under the Constitution, it can carry out a special intensive revision “as it may deem fit”.

As a saving grace, in a recent hearing for the case, one of the two-judge bench, Justice Joymalya Bagchi reportedly said, discretion cannot be untrammelled and unregulated. tTe bench has reserved the judgement in the case with pro-democratic forces waiting for the verdict. In a radical change by the ECI, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) who was empowered under Sections 22 and 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, to delete or include a voter once they are independently ‘satisfied’ after conducting an inquiry, were reduced to intermediaries through software, called ERONET.

The ECI, much like its political masters, had initially claimed that identifying and removing ‘illegal migrants’ was one of the key reasons to carry out the SIR. Unfortunately for both the ECI and the BJP, in Bihar, they found none. Now the hunt for them has started in West Bengal. Will ECI get to do “as it may deem fit” with the citizen’s voting rights?