On Monday, when Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announced the nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls — it will be carried out across 12 states and one Union Territory — it was apparent that the EC had paid attention to the Supreme Court and learnt from its Bihar experience. The nationwide exercise, which includes states scheduled to hold polls in the first half of next year — Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry — will start on November 4. Around 5.33 lakh booth-level officers (BLOs) will visit households to get enumeration forms filled in. It will be followed by the submission of forms by December 4 and the publication of the first draft electoral rolls on December 9.
The exercise is going to be different from the Bihar SIR on three counts. First, the process now appears to be more inclusive. For instance, the enumeration forms have been redesigned to include two columns where the electors are supposed to mention their links — through parents or even relatives — to the last revised electoral rolls. This was not the case at the beginning of the Bihar SIR. The electors who were not registered in the 2003 revised rolls were asked to submit any of the 11 prescribed documents to prove their eligibility. It was only after the field officers reported difficulties in gathering these documents that the EC, in the claims and objection stage, opted for tracing the voters’ direct or indirect link to the 2003 rolls. This time, the EC has also allowed existing electors to trace their link to the last revised rolls of any state, essentially removing the curb that any applicant would have to establish their connection to the last revised rolls of the state where they currently reside. Second, unlike the Bihar SIR, where the SC had to nudge the EC to accept Aadhaar as the 12th document, Aadhaar will be one of the eligible documents of the nationwide exercise from the outset, making the process more inclusive and easier for those unable to establish links with the last revised electoral rolls. Third, on the question of citizenship — it is still an eligibility criterion, but not the only one — the EC has softened its stance.
These shifts are welcome. However, it appears that they are not enough to allay the concerns of non-NDA-ruled states. Tamil Nadu and Kerala have criticised the EC for conducting the exercise in “haste” — the DMK has cited the north-east monsoon as a crucial barrier; the West Bengal government has called the EC “extremely compromised”. Opposition political parties need to understand that the SIR is a necessary exercise to revise and update electoral rolls — there have been eight nationwide electoral roll revisions between 1951 and 2004. At the same time, the EC must also work on its grievance redressal mechanism. As a constitutional body, it must be above partisan politics and political rhetoric. The nationwide SIR could be an occasion for the EC to clarify all election-related concerns through transparent procedures.
