Civil society activists reject SIR, call for mass agitation against electoral manipulation

Civil society activists, lawyers, former civil servants, academicians, and technologists, at a national conclave on Democratic Governance and Citizens Rights here on Saturday, demanded immediate scrapping of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and called for a mass agitation against alleged electoral manipulation orchestrated by the Election Commission of India (EC) at the behest of the ruling BJP-led NDA at the Centre.

The Chennai Convention passed resolutions demanding immediate dissolution of the present EC and constitution of a new Commission through an unbiased process, 100% counting of the VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) slips, and no addition or deletion to be done without informing the voter or their family.

While machine-readable voters’ list should be made available online, as a measure of transparency, voters’ data in every EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) should be behind an immutable electronic lock and the lock values should be shared online.

The Conclave resolved to carry the Chennai resolution to all parts of the country to build nationwide consciousness towards ground action in all States.

“Democracy is where the voters elect a government. We have reached a stage where the government selects voters,” said Parakala Prabhakar, social scientist and author. Pointing out the “inexplicable” discrepancy between provisional and final voter turnout figures in several elections in the past few years as raised by researchers, civil society members, and opposition parties, he rued the absence of a movement on ground against it. “We cannot any longer outsource the task of defending democracy to political parties, which themselves are innately undemocratic,” Dr. Prabhakar added.

Speaking on the judiciary’s role in the Bihar SIR imbroglio, Usha Ramanathan, legal expert and rights activist, said that the burden has shifted to the individual to establish that they are citizens of this country and has been so for a long time, and the courts have no ability to recognise this. “We know that the whole Assam process was actually pushed by the court,” she added.

Outlining measures to improve electoral transparency, M.G. Devasahayam, former civil servant, said that the counting of votes should start immediately after polling was over, the EC should reveal actual turnout of voters within three hours of close of polling, and social audit of electoral rolls should be done at the village panchayat or local body-level to get the voters involved in the process.

R. Balakrishnan, former Deputy Election Commissioner; V. Ponraj, former technology advisor to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam; Madhav A. Deshpande, former technology consultant to the US government; Anjali Bhardwaj, activist; Nithin Sethi, journalist and trustee, The Reporters Collective; Tara Rao, founder-member, All India Mission (AIM 24); R. Sachithanantham, CPI(M) MP, and S.S. Balaji, VCK MLA, spoke.