Bihar SIR: Daylight voter fraud by another name

If you care about India’s democracy, you need to keep an eagle eye on the madness currently unfolding in Bihar in the name of the so-called ‘special intensive revision’ (or ‘SIR’) of electoral rolls. If you appreciate why the autonomy of institutions like the Election Commission of India (ECI) matters, you need to understand the ongoing scam in Bihar under the aegis of the poll panel. If you believe in universal adult franchise, you’ll have to confront the reality of this voter purge.

The SIR is not only about Bihar. This state is merely the first testing ground of this hare-brained idea. Your turn is coming too. Over the next year, this ‘intensive revision’ of voter lists is supposed to happen across the country.

But make no mistake, this isn’t revision — it’s the creation of an all-new voter list.

You’ll hear that such revisions have happened before, but that’s a red herring. What’s happening in Bihar has never happened in the history of Indian democracy.

You may have voted in 10 elections over the past 20 years, but you still must prove that you are an Indian citizen and eligible to vote. What’s more: your citizenship will now be decided by an anonymous government official through an opaque verification process that no one fully understands.

Let’s examine what the SIR exercise was to entail as per the ECI — and what is really happening on the ground.

On 24 June, the Election Commission suddenly ordered that all 7.9 crore individuals listed in Bihar’s current voter rolls would be visited at home by their respective BLOs (Booth Level Officers), who would hand them two copies of a special new form. This form would already contain their name and photo as they appear on the current voter list. Each person would then have to fill out the form, paste a new photo, sign and submit it — along with the required documents.

If your name was on the 2003 voter list, you’d need to attach a copy of the page on which your name appeared in the rolls. But if it wasn’t on that list, you’d have to provide proof of your date and place of birth as well as the date and place of birth of either parent — or both, if you were born after 2004.

All of this had to be submitted by 25 July. Miss that deadline and your name wouldn’t make it to the draft list. No appeals. No second chances. Supporting documents too had to be submitted by 25 July — the month of August would be reserved for verification only.

That, dear reader, was the original ECI decree, one that brings to mind a certain mad emperor.

Reality hit within a week — and just as it was during the demonetisation of 2016, all sorts of ad hoc relaxations started pouring in thereafter.

Now, if your parents’ names appeared in the 2003 list, you didn’t need to submit their documents — just your own.

Then came a newspaper ad announcing that forms could be submitted without any documents. The same evening, the ECI insisted nothing had changed and the original process stood. Then they said BLOs would initially hand over just one copy of the form, the second would follow later. When that didn’t solve the mess, they announced that photos were now optional.

Even that didn’t help in urban areas. So, municipal workers have been tasked with delivering new forms — with no pre-printed names, no photos. Just blank forms.

All these changes, mind you, were introduced without a single formal amendment to the ECI’s 24 June order.

During demonetisation, the RBI at least felt constrained to change the rules on paper; the ECI, on the other hand, has used the expedient of press releases and oral instructions.

It gets even more bizarre, as a few gutsy YouTubers and newspapers have exposed.

Taking their cue, no doubt, from the ECI, BLOs across Bihar took to filling out forms themselves.

When it looked like all the ECI really wanted was numbers to trot out in its daily press releases, the entire machinery got busy stuffing the file cabinet. Most people didn’t receive even a single form, let alone two. Nor did they fill any forms. But forms were marked ‘filled’ and counted. Most of these ‘filled’ forms have no documents or photos, the details are incomplete, and the signatures possibly forged.

Meanwhile, people are in a state of panic.

The poor are standing in queues to get certificates. Some are paying bribes to ‘arrange’ documents. The sad reality is that nearly 40 per cent of people in Bihar do not possess any of the documents the ECI lists as valid proof.

So, what now?

One thing is certain: by 25 July, the ECI will proudly announce over 95 per cent compliance (or, who knows, maybe 100 per cent?). But the real question is: After declaring success, will the ECI still demand documents? Will those who fail to submit documents be struck off the rolls? If that happens, over a crore names could be deleted — and that would mean chaos. Or will the Supreme Court step in and force the ECI to scrap the order?

Even if Bihar gets a reprieve, the spectre of a largescale voter purge will still hang over the whole country. Unless the Supreme Court forces the ECI to scrap this crazy order, which threatens our constitutional commitment to universal adult franchise.

Views are personal. More of Yogendra Yadav's writing may be read here.