Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa questions SIR voter deletions at Kolkata convention

Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa on Tuesday, 13 October, questioned the removal of voters’ names during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, addressing a citizens’ convention in Kolkata via video link, according to The Wire and IPA Newspack.

What Lavasa said

“Possibly the priority is to exclude people from the voter list on the suspicion that they are not Indian citizens,” Lavasa said, according to The Wire. “Discrepancy cannot be ground for disqualification,” he said.

He said Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) are the statutory authority for removing voters: “EROs are only authorised officials to remove voters. But they were unable to access ECINET,” he said, The Wire reported. IPA Newspack reported that he described the denial of access as illegal and said the commission’s meeting minutes are not accessible.

“If people feel that the umpire is not neutral, they will question the winning team’s victory as well,” Lavasa said, according to The Wire. Asianet News Hindi reported that he said no eligible person should be denied the right to vote on suspicion alone and that affected people should get a fair hearing.

Figures cited at the convention

The Wire reported the following West Bengal figures cited at the event:

• 6,39,049 Form 7 (deletion) applications processed, 5,72,330 resulting in deletions
• 34,13,481 Form 6 (addition) applications received, 7,07,606 accepted
• About 60 lakh voters placed under adjudication

The convention, organised by former bureaucrat Jawhar Sircar and CPI(M) leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, demanded that the SIR be scrapped, that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign and that there be an independent probe, The Wire reported. Actor Prakash Raj also spoke.

Election Commission’s position

The Election Commission has said the revision is needed to remove dead, shifted and duplicate voters and that a Form 7 filing does not lead to deletion without a hearing, The Wire reported. On 9 October it capped Form 7 applications at 10 per person, citing “unsubstantiated bulk objections,” according to the same report. IPA Newspack reported that the commission has rejected allegations of political bias and told the Supreme Court that about 38.3 lakh appeals had been filed before tribunals. Neither report carried a specific response from the commission to Lavasa’s remarks.

Sources: The Wire, IPA Newspack, Asianet News Hindi