The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly opposed what it described as an “ill-conceived, undemocratic and unconstitutional” attempt by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to carry out a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in Bihar, warning that the exercise threatens to disenfranchise millions of voters just months before the state assembly elections.
In a statement, NAPM accused the Commission of conducting the revision in haste, deleting 65 lakh names from the rolls without transparency or due process. “The SIR is nothing short of a malicious attempt to infringe upon the right to vote,” NAPM said, adding that this was the first electoral roll revision in independent India’s history where no new voters had been added and where the responsibility of proving eligibility was shifted onto the voters themselves.
NAPM pointed to the Supreme Court’s interim order directing the Commission to publish the list of deletions along with reasons and to allow Aadhaar and voter IDs in appeals against deletions. While welcoming the court’s intervention, the alliance said the process remained riddled with inaccuracies, arbitrary exclusions and a lack of accountability. Ground reports, it said, have exposed widespread irregularities, with many poor and marginalized people forced to spend scarce resources to secure documents demanded by officials. “This exercise is by design exclusionary and will take away the right to vote from millions, especially the poor, minorities, women and the socially disadvantaged,” the organisation stated.
The alliance also expressed concern over the ECI’s insistence on linking the eligibility of voters under 40 to their presence on the 2003 rolls, effectively turning voter registration into a “citizenship test.” NAPM said former election officials have clarified that the 2003 exercise did not involve proof of citizenship, raising questions about the Commission’s justification for the current drive. “What is unfolding before us is a systematic plot to disenfranchise millions of poor Indians from their fundamental right to vote,” NAPM alleged, linking the SIR to what it described as the ruling party’s long-term design to use state machinery for voter suppression and social division.
Calling the SIR in Bihar a “test case for democracy in the country,” the group warned that if the experiment succeeds, it could be replicated nationwide. “The regime has openly challenged the people of the country, it is now up to the people to respond,” NAPM declared. It urged the Election Commission to immediately stop the revision process and instead conduct a transparent and inclusive voter registration exercise. It also called upon the Supreme Court to penalise officials responsible for devising the SIR, conduct a court-monitored probe into electoral fraud allegations, and ensure that nothing is done to erode citizens’ democratic rights.
“Institutions like the ECI have been granted constitutional autonomy for a reason, but what we are witnessing now is their systematic collapse,” NAPM said, adding that the entire process raises serious doubts about the fairness of upcoming elections in Bihar and beyond.
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