Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has revived his criticism of the Election Commission of India and the Bharatiya Janata Party over changes to Maharashtra’s electoral rolls after more than two crore names were left out of the draft voter list prepared during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
Gandhi has termed the issue as “vote chori” and questioned the process through which the voter list was revised. The matter has triggered a fresh political dispute between the Congress and the BJP, as the Election Commission also faces questions about the large difference in the number of electors.
Before the revision exercise, Maharashtra had about 9.78 crore registered electors. The draft electoral roll for SIR after the revision process has around 7.71 crore voters. This is a difference of nearly 2.07 crore names.
The figures are in the political debate. Rahul Gandhi has said that such a large reduction of the electoral roll should be looked into.
He has repeatedly accused the BJP and Election Commission of benefiting from alleged irregularities in the electoral process.
For the Congress, it is a possibility that the removal or non-inclusion of such a large number of voters would have serious consequences if the eligible citizens are not able to vote in the elections. Party leaders have therefore demanded greater transparency in the revision exercise.
But, the Election Commission has maintained that names missing from the draft list should not be considered permanently deleted.
A voter’s name is sometimes not on the draft roll because of a number of reasons, government officials say.
These could be voters moving from their registered addresses, deaths, duplicate registration, migration and cases where enumeration forms could not be collected.
Voters whose names are missing also have the opportunity to file claims and objections during the prescribed period.
The Commission has stressed that the current list is only a draft and the electoral roll revision process is still ongoing. Eligible voters can approach the authorities with the necessary documents to ensure their inclusion in the final list.
But the Congress has made the issue as central as possible to its political fight. The party feels the scale of the changes should be thoroughly examined, particularly because Maharashtra is a centre of national politics.
The whole affair has also brought attention back to the accuracy and transparency of electoral rolls. Opposition parties have voiced criticism of the lack of voters, but election authorities have maintained that the revision process is to identify genuine voters and delete errors from the rolls.
The final electoral roll will be able to give a clearer picture of how many voters have either been removed, restored or newly included following the claims and objections process.
For now, the matter is politically charged. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress continue to question the Election Commission and BJP, while authorities maintain that the draft list should not be regarded as the final electoral roll.
The next step of the revision process will determine how many of the excluded voters will be added back to Maharashtra’s voter list.
