NEW DELHI: While Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) sparks fear of exclusion of voters as it aligns with the 2003 Citizenship Act, former Election Commissioner (EC) Ashok Lavasa said that it is not the Election Commission’s job to issue a citizenship certificate.
In a directive on June 24, the ECI cited Article 326 of the Constitution stating that "a person is required to be an Indian citizen, for his/her name to be registered in the electoral roll. Consequently, the Commission has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only persons who are citizens are included".
Speaking to TNIE, Lavasa said that according to the Citizenship Act, it is the responsibility of the state or the government to issue any kind of citizenship card or certificate. It is not ECI's job to issue that certificate, he said. The Election Commission is a constitutional body and its role is to supervise and the election, he added.
“The point is that so far all the people who have been enrolled were not in adherence to Article 326?
There was a system by which people were being enrolled for the last seven decades. And it was nobody's contention, least of all EC’s, that they have done it in violation of the existing procedure. So today, to invoke Article 326 doesn't sound convincing,” said the former EC.
After the 2003 SIR, there have been five general elections and there have been five state assembly elections in which people have voted.
It is unfair to ask a person to submit his/her documents if they have already been enrolled as an elector after following due process, he said.
“This exercise should not be at the risk of his/ her being removed from the roll, said Lavasa.
In the last seven decades, ECI has been following its own procedure, an approach which is inclusive, he added. “By inference, when the ECI says that it is going to strictly follow Article 326, which, to my mind, it has been following in the past. But by doing this exercise, this question has been raised that those whose names figured in the electoral roll earlier, who were deemed to be citizens of this country, when you remove their name because they are not able to give these documents, what will be their fate? What will happen to them? he asked.
Many have flagged Clause 5(b) of the ECI’s directive, which allows local Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to refer anyone they suspect of being a foreign national to citizenship authorities. The clause says that the ERO “will refer cases of suspected foreign nationals to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955”. “Does it mean the state will take over its responsibility of verifying, certifying, and then taking a decision on their legal status.,” he asked.
In its directive, the ECI said any person whose name is not recorded in the last intensive revision on January 1, 2003— an estimated 2.93 crore— will have to submit at least one of 11 documents to establish their eligibility to vote. Of these, those born between 1987 and 2004 will have to provide documents for one of their parents and of both parents for those born after 2004.
The former EC said that while it may not be fair to prejudge the outcome of the exercise, it should not have been conducted in such a hurried manner just a few months before the elections.
Though it is within the powers of EC to conduct the revision, the timing of the announcement and the suddenness have led to a lot of controversy, he said.
“Since the exercise was announced in a hurry, it can needlessly create complications which will either adversely affect the electors who are already enrolled in the past. It will unnecessarily raise doubts about the capacity of the system to deliver this,” he said..
It is important to ask what prevented the EC from starting it earlier.
“It would have been better if either this exercise for Bihar had been started, say, early this year or last year, because the electoral roll was published in January 2025,” he said.
