The Delhi SIR dispute intensified on Wednesday after leaders of the INDIA bloc met Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar and demanded that the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls be cancelled and 47.56 lakh names removed from the draft voter list be restored.
The delegation submitted a memorandum to the Delhi CEO after marching from Kashmiri Gate to the Delhi election office, according to a statement issued by the alliance. It included leaders from the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI(ML), Revolutionary Socialist Party, All India Forward Bloc and Trinamool Congress.
The opposition parties objected to the removal of more than 47 lakh names from the draft list and said notices had been issued to more than 33 lakh people over discrepancies in their records. They demanded that the notices be withdrawn and that the names of all eligible voters removed from the list be restored.
The alliance also called for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that the manner in which the SIR was conducted had raised questions about the Election Commission’s functioning and transparency. The demands were made amid continuing opposition protests against the revision exercise.
The dispute centres on how voters whose records contain discrepancies can establish their eligibility and remain on the electoral roll. Opposition parties have alleged that the process could exclude eligible voters from exercising their franchise. The Election Commission has said that the SIR gives people an opportunity to prove their eligibility and that the issue of a notice does not mean that a voter’s name has been deleted from the electoral roll.
The INDIA bloc separately demanded a return to ballot-paper voting, arguing that elections should be conducted through paper ballots to restore public confidence in the electoral process. The demand adds the voting method to the alliance’s wider challenge to the conduct and transparency of the revision exercise.
After the meeting with the Delhi CEO, Delhi Congress president Devendra Yadav and party workers joined an INDIA bloc protest at Jantar Mantar. Police detained them during the demonstration. Yadav said the arrests would not stop the Congress from protesting against the SIR and called for action against those whom the party accused of weakening the electoral process.
The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s office had not issued an immediate response to the opposition parties’ demands, according to the report. The next stage of the process will determine how notices issued over record discrepancies are handled and whether affected voters are able to establish their eligibility before the electoral roll is finalised.
