THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Clerical errors that occurred during voters’ list renewal led to multiple entries of voters in the electoral roll for the recently held Kerala assembly elections, according to the outgoing Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, whose term at the helm ended on Monday, spoke on a range of topics in an email interview with TNIE that included allegations regarding irregularities in the voters’ list raised by Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and the row over data privacy. Voters who have complaints about Chennithala’s ‘Operation Twins’ can approach the court for compensation.
Excerpts from the interview:
Kerala’s Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala published a list of 4.3 lakh multiple and erroneous entries in the voters’ list while the EC’s statement in the High Court said there were only 38,000 persons with multiple electoral identities. What’s your take on this?
There are instances where an elector gets enrolled at his new residence while not applying for deletion at the old address. Such duplicate or multiple entries are categorised as Demographically Similar Entries (DSE). This number was 38,586. A thorough field verification was done in Kerala based on which a list of Absent, Shifted, Dead/Duplicate (ASD) entries was prepared polling station-wise. The list was shared with presiding officers and also with political parties in the light of High Court order.
The ruling front has accused the Opposition leader of compromising the personal data of voters by hosting the list of double entries on “Operation Twins”, a website with its registered IP address in Singapore. The BJP lodged a complaint with the EC. Has the Opposition leader violated any law?
Copy of electoral roll is shared free of cost with recognised political parties at the time of draft and final publication of electoral roll. Hard copy of the electoral roll so shared contains electors’ demographic details along with photographs whereas soft copy does not contain photographs. Due to issues related to privacy as well as data profiling, sharing in soft copy of electoral roll as well as hosting on CEO’s website is done without photographs of electors and that too in PDF image format.In this case an investigation is needed to arrive at a conclusion.
Two situations may be anticipated. One is that the data compromised by the Opposition leader has been illegally taken from the commission’s computer resource. Then it would attract the penal provisions of Section 43 of the IT Act, 2000 and Section 378 (Theft) of the Indian Penal Code.The other situation is in which the data compromised by the Opposition leader was voluntarily given by ECI as an electoral roll. Then Sections 405 (Criminal breach of trust) and 505 (Statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code may be applicable. The right to privacy is a fundamental right as held by the Supreme Court in Puttaswamy case. Therefore, affected persons can avail of compensation from courts.
Did the Election Commission err in identifying multiple entries before the Opposition leader flagged it?
ECI places utmost importance to electoral roll’s sacrosanctity. It is a dynamic roll. New electors are included when they become eligible, electors migrate and change address. Dead and ineligible electors have to be deleted. There are detailed SoPs for inclusion and deletion. The process of deletion is far more stringent to avoid any wrongful deletion which may deprive an eligible elector of his voting right. As a result, there are instances where an elector gets enrolled at his new residence and his name continues in the previous address. This happens because while applying for registration at a new address, the elector fails to give details of his previous enrolment.
Do you suspect foul play by the state government officers associated with the voters’ list preparation with regard to multiple entries? If so, will there be action against such officers?
No such instance has come to the commission. The commission would not hesitate to take disciplinary action if any lapse was found, as was the case in Kasaragod for which the AERO concerned was placed under suspension.