A group of senior lawyers, activists and civil society members on Monday demanded rollback of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls nationwide, restoration of names deleted as part of the exercise and resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.
At a press conference in Delhi under the banner "Together We Stand", the participants also demanded that forthcoming elections be held on basis of pre-SIR electoral rolls and sought an independent inquiry into the constitutionality and legality of decisions taken by the Election Commission (EC) during the exercise.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal said the EC's functioning has become "tainted", also asserting that the manner in which the Supreme Court had viewed the matter made it necessary for citizens to come forward. "If free and fair elections are disrupted, what's left of democracy?" Sibal said.
The issue of mass deletion and addition of names as part of SIR has been raised before the Supreme Court several times.
"It is now proven that it was wrong. Many elections have happened since then," Sibal said, demanding all decisions with respect to SIR be withdrawn as they were not taken by the EC, but allegedly pushed through by the CEC, and therefore were devoid of legitimacy.
He said the Supreme Court must be told that issues it had earlier considered decrees of the EC were not its decisions at all, but taken unilaterally by the CEC.
Asked if the SIR exercise was aimed at disenfranchising Muslims, Sibal said the criteria of 'logical discrepancies' was engineered for this very purpose.
Addressing the press, Yogendra Yadav said the number of voters in the final electoral rolls after completion of the SIR process called into question the scale of deletions.
"During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, our adult population was 99 crore and the number of voters was 98 crore, almost equal. We were proud that we had an accurate voter list," he said.
"After SIR purification, there are now 88 crore voters or less, while the adult population stands at 103 crore. Thus, at least 15 crore Indians are missing from electoral rolls," Yadav said.
Referring to the EC's recent statement on SIR, Yadav said it was signed by all three commissioners, alleging that it amounted to "an admission of guilt and criminal conduct".
He said the EC has also indicated that minutes and agendas would be maintained for its meetings in future.
Yadav claimed that 13.5 crore names had been removed through ECINet and a committee would now review whether the exercise had been conducted as per law.
On Form 6, he said the EC was aware that it was meant for persons applying for registration as voters for the first time. Despite that, Yadav claimed crores of voters were made to sign Form 6 and give false declarations, thereby making them party to a "criminal act".
Responding to a question related to Gen-Z voters, Yadav pointed out that the legacy requirement in Form 6 is making it difficult for first-time voters to register, saying, therefore, SIR is only seeing deletions and only few additions.
Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan questioned the EC's use of the term "logical discrepancy", asking whether there was any standard or framework for deciding such cases, also contending that the SIR exercise is happening in violation of the Representation of People's Act and Rules.
He cited examples of voters being doubted over an age difference of less than 40 years with their grandparents.
Bhushan questioned EC's move "asking" existing voters to fill Form 6, saying this could require them to make a false declaration, while also expressing concern over the "centralised" control of electoral rolls.
"The Supreme Court let our democracy collapse. We have to together raise our voice against it," Bhushan said.
Women's rights activist Sayeda Hamid cited cases of people being declared dead or untraceable despite being alive and very-much traceable. She referred to Kanta Prasad of Delhi's Mangolpuri -- who she said had been declared dead over a spelling issue -- and Lakshmi Devi, who was wrongly categorised "untraceable" or shifted.
Activist Nikhil Dey said the details of the last SIR, conducted in 2001, had not been provided under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, despite the EC telling Supreme Court that the present exercise followed the same process. He also questioned how citizenship could be linked to the exercise.
Civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad said the EC is a constitutional institution and should be answerable to people. "The way EC behaves, there is no accountability. SIR should be cancelled."
She demanded that problems relating to Form 6 be addressed and that Forms 9, 10, 11 and 11B, as well as Form 17C, be uploaded. Setalvad said "over-digitalisation" had made electoral rolls non-searchable and demanded EVM source code be made public.
Calling for a people's movement, she asserted that SIR "must go", while the way forward for states where elections had taken place on the basis of the 'tainted' exercise should be discussed.
The group demanded that all forthcoming elections be held on pre-SIR rolls, after summary revision if required, as was the practice before SIR came along.
It also sought a public audit of electoral rolls as provided for in the Manual on Electoral Rolls of December 2023. It said no voter should be removed without open public verification at the gram sabha, ward sabha or booth level, in the presence of the booth-level officers (BLO) and electoral registration officers (ERO), with immediate correction of wrongful deletions. The demand should apply to future revisions as well, it said.
The participants demanded CEC Kumar's resignation forthwith and, failing that, immediate impeachment proceedings. They also sought repeal of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, and its replacement with an appointment mechanism free of executive control, besides removal of immunity from civil and criminal proceedings for current and former CECs and ECs.
They demanded the EC put every SIR-related document in public domain, including original files on the decision to conduct SIR in each phase, all meeting minutes, objections by ECs and DECs, the complete log and source code of ECINet, criteria for categorisation as "logical discrepancy" or "VIP", changes to the BLO App, communications between the commission and CEOs and between CEOs and EROs, including WhatsApp communications, and the decision to file appeals against inclusion of more than 16 lakh names in West Bengal.
The group also sought restoration of welfare benefits to all Indians wrongfully denied benefits on the basis of deletion of their names from voter rolls.
It demanded an independent and credible inquiry into the constitutionality and legality of all decisions taken under Kumar and into the design, process, implementation and consequences of SIR. The inquiry, it said, should fix responsibility on the CEC, other ECs, officials and third parties for misconduct, breach of duty and criminal liability for wrongful disenfranchisement.
Former Supreme Court justice Madan Lokur, former CEC SY Quraishi and former Delhi Lt General Najeeb Jung were present at the venue during the press conference.
The press conference followed a report that two of the three election commissioners had objected on multiple occasions to decisions relating to voter registration, deletion and restoration of names and the SIR exercise. The Indian Express' report said such objections had been raised at least 14 times.
The EC subsequently said all orders related to SIR had the approval of all three commissioners and issued a clarification on the decision-making process and measures being taken to address cases involving unmapped and logically discrepant voters.
(With inputs from PTI)
