EC Is PlayingAround With Right to Vote
The special massive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, invented by the Election Commission to crush well-intentioned voters on one pretext or another, is creating turmoil in West Bengal and putting the legitimacy of the election to the test of the state Assembly, scheduled to be held in April.
The latest bad news is that the EC has released an additional voter list after examining the claims of close to 32 lakh people who rejected 12.8 lakh candidates.
Data is critical. The EC released the electoral roll on February 28 after the first phase of SIR, excluding around 63.6 lakh voters who had initially voted. Another 62 lakh area was marked as ‘under decision’. The EC had assured that any person on the “under jurisdiction” list would not be removed from the list if they could prove their legitimacy as voters. Intervening in the matter, the Supreme Court also assured them that the EC would prepare additional lists to enable them to vote. But the truth is that the EC managed to screen just over 50 percent of the names on this list in 24 days; the remaining 30 lakh are still waiting to be called to prove their credentials. Worse, even if the Supreme Court had ordered such regulation, those left out were given no room to appeal. The apex court had allowed the chief election officer of West Bengal to avail the services of former high court judges to head the panel that will hear the appeals.
The first phase of the election covers 152 Assembly constituencies. The newspaper notification regarding this stage will be published on 30 March 2026.
The last dates for filing nominations for the two-phase elections in the state are April 6 and April 9 respectively. Considering that a candidate must be a member of the electorate of that state to contest the Assembly elections of that state and the EC is not in a position to complete the SIR process before then, this will deny all candidates whose cases have not been decided the chance to contest the elections. To make matters worse, most voting rights will be effectively taken away unless the process is completed at least a few days before April 23.
The fact that the EC started the election process with an incomplete voter list is a serious violation of the Constitution, law and the foundations of electoral democracy. If the EC is to remain committed to the idea of free and fair elections, it must now freeze the SIR process and hold the elections with the electoral roll that was in place before the creaking SIR process began. The right to vote in a democracy cannot be undermined by institutions that do not respect democratic principles.
