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Questioning the impartiality of the Election Commission, the Opposition Tuesday claimed that the poll body does not have the powers to conduct a nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
During the debate in the Lok Sabha on ‘election reforms’ amid the ongoing electoral roll revisions across 12 states/UTs, Opposition leaders alleged that the EC’s intention behind the SIR exercise was to “delete” electors and “not authenticate them”.
Tewari emphasised that the poll body “cannot do SIR” in an entire state. “This is just a right to the EC that if there is anything wrong with the electoral roll of a constituency, it can correct it for reasons that need to be recorded in writing and made public.”
SIR has to be done separately in constituencies where there is a problem with the roll after recording the problems in writing, making them public, Tewari said. “I would like to ask the government where are the reasons (recorded) in writing,” he said.
Tewari offered several suggestions for electoral reforms, and said either 100% counting of VVPAT slips should be done or the country should revert to paper ballots.
Talking of EVMs, Tewari said that democracy is all about trust and added: “The people voting should know their votes are being cast correctly… I am not saying EVMs are being manipulated. I am saying there is doubt in people’s minds about EVMs.” He also called for disallowing direct cash transfers before elections. He said the government must ask the EC and let the Opposition know if the EVMs source code, the mother board programme, is with the poll body or with the companies.
Samajwadi Party president and MP Akhilesh Yadav said election reforms can only be undertaken if the EC is impartial and suggested that an enhanced panel selects the CEC and the Election Commissioners.
Akhilesh made a slew of allegations to claim that the poll authority was not functioning with “neutrality”.
Akhilesh also said that the country should go back to ballot paper elections, saying even advanced countries, including Germany, do not use EVMs. The SP chief alleged that during the Rampur and Milkipur bypolls, held in December 2022 and February this year, respectively, the BJP government in UP used all its might, including police, to prevent genuine electors from casting their votes.
He claimed that his party had submitted thousands of complaints to the EC, but no action was taken.
TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee said that the objective of the ongoing SIR is to “delete” electors and “not authenticate them”. Calling the exercise “arbitrary”, Banerjee said: “Why should an elector, whose name was there in 2024 (voter list), be told he is not an elector because his name was not there in 2002?”
Mentioning SIR-related deaths in the country, Banerjee asked: “Who will be responsible? The Election Commission?”
Deputy Leader of the DMK in LS Dayanidhi Maran said the EC has to play a neutral role, but the day the BJP government came to power, the “belief and trust (in the EC) was lost”. “Not just people, even politicians don’t believe the EC,” said Maran, adding that the revision of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu should have been done at least six months in advance and not so close to the state elections, next year.
NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule said that there was a “perception” that the poll panel was “unfair” as it has “allowed its political neutrality to come under serious question”.
“The Model Code of Conduct is enforced unevenly and inconsistently. The Commission has failed to curb hate speeches. The EC has not kept pace with digital manipulation, deepfakes and targeted propaganda. Political parties routinely exceed expenditure limits and the EC just looks away,” said Sule.
RJD MP Abhay Kumar Sinha alleged that during the Bihar Assembly elections, the government transferred Rs 10,000 each in the accounts of women and spent Rs 40,000 crore, which was in violation of the Model Code of Conduct.
YSRCP’s P V Midhun Reddy said that the election process “should be such that both winners and losers have trust in the process”. CPI(M) MP Amra Ram said that “people who have voted 60 times in this country are being asked to prove their citizenship”.
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