Lakhs in Bihar may lose vote, ADR tells SC | India News

NEW DELHI: Election Commission’s particular intensive revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls simply months earlier than meeting polls has been challenged in Supreme Court with Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) telling the court docket that the choice has been taken arbitrarily with an impractical timeline and that it could disenfranchise lakhs of individuals, notably from marginalised communities. This is towards free and honest election, the organisation stated.ADR, on whose pleas SC has in the previous handed a number of orders to deliver in electoral reforms, stated in its petition that SIR’s requirement for citizenship documentation disproportionately impacts marginalised communities, together with Muslims, SCs, STs and migrant staff, as Aadhaar and ration playing cards will not be acceptable. Many individuals who did not have the requisite paperwork may not be capable of procure it inside the brief time interval mounted by EC, it stated.“The SIR order, if not set aside, can arbitrarily and without due process disenfranchise lakhs of voters from electing their representatives, thereby disrupting free and fair elections and democracy in the country,” the petition stated. “The documentation requirements of the directive, lack of due process as well as the unreasonably short timeline for SIR of electoral roll in Bihar further make this exercise bound to result in removal of names of lakhs of genuine voters from electoral rolls,” it stated.The EC order has “shifted the onus of being on the voters’ list from the State to citizens. It has excluded identification documents such as Aadhaar or ration cards which further makes marginalised communities and the poor more vulnerable to exclusion from voting”, it stated. “The declaration as required under SIR process is violative of Article 326 in so far as it requires a voter to provide documents to prove his/her citizenship and also citizenships of his/her mother or father, failing which his/her name would not be added to the draft electoral roll and can be deleted from the same,” the petition statedTerming the timeline mounted by EC for SIR as unreasonable and impractical, the petition stated lakhs of residents who did not possess the required paperwork may not be capable of procure the paperwork inside the brief time.“Bihar is a state with high poverty and migration rates where many lack access to documents like birth certificates or parental records. As per estimates, over three crore voters and more particularly from marginalised communities could be excluded from voting due to the stringent requirements as mentioned in the SIR order. That the current reports from Bihar, where SIR is already underway, show that lakhs of voters from villages and marginalised communities do not possess the documents as being sought for them,” the petition stated.Questioning EC’s determination allegedly taken in haste, the petition identified that the fee in May listed 21 initiatives to enhance voter entry and to streamline ballot administration however the SIR of electoral rolls was not talked about.