SIR is ‘Selective Ideological Removal’: Opposition; Govt says it’s in line with Ambedkar principles

“There are three pillars of democracy—everybody’s right to vote, an impartial election by an independent Election Commission, and the strength of the Constitution and its independent institutions. If these three are alive, democracy is alive. If they are taken away, controlled, then democracy will become a show,” he said.

Surjewala made several suggestions for electoral reforms, including counting of all VVPAT slips and halt on new cash transfer schemes and benefit transfer schemes six months before the elections.

Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said the SIR exercise was in line with Babasaheb Ambedkar’s principle of one person, one vote, one value. “Those who are ineligible should be excluded from the list. Those who are eligible should be in the list. This is SIR. What else is it?… SIR that is happening on the basis of Babasaheb’s principle of one person, one vote, one value…,” he said.

“…for the framers of the Constitution, the EC is a very important body…it is a constitutional body…they (the Opposition) are asking, where did the EC get the powers to conduct SIR.”

Meghwal said the matter of electoral reforms is not new and under PM Narendra Modi, the mantra is “perform, reform, transform” to move towards “Viksit Bharat”.

Referring to Ambedkar’s electoral losses, Meghwal said: “The Congress did not lose any opportunity to insult Babasaheb. 1952 ka chunav harvaya candidate khada karke (they made him lose the 1952 election).” “We are working as per the Constitution, you are opposing it,” he said.

The minister said the SIR exercise was carried out earlier too, including when Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh were PMs. “SIR has been happening… yeh kare toh theek, aur Modi ji kare toh kharab,” Meghwal said.

Congress MP Digvijaya Singh said, “After 2014, people of a certain ideology are being placed in all constitutional bodies, whether they are eligible or not.”

“For fair elections, there needs to be a foolproof voter list… Every citizen is to be included in the list…Where did the SIR come from? We are being asked questions about citizenship…” Singh said.

“Vote chori is also a matter of concern…one person’s name is in many places,” Singh said, pointing out that the issue could have been fixed using deduplication software, but the EC has stopped using it.

CPI(M)’s John Brittas said: “End-to-end, the system has to be cleaned up… For that we need a neutral umpire… Big money needs to be curtailed….the extent of money that is spent on elections is alarming.”

NCP(SP) MP Fauzia Khan asked if SIR was the only way to find “ghuspaithiya” and if a joint committee of Parliament can be formed to bring in a legislation.