Yes, it openly encouraged the Election Commission to make the vote revision process more transparent...
Vote-reform campaign is essential for the cleanliness of the electoral process Editorial: The Election Commission of India has announced that after Bihar, the Special In-depth Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls will begin in 12 more states and union territories from November 4.
Such an exercise should be welcomed in any strong democracy, but the Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK and some other opposition parties have opposed this announcement. They claim that the Election Commission is biased and wants to cut the votes of sections associated with the opposition parties through this exercise. Such criticism and opposition is unfortunate.
The Congress and other opposition parties had raised very strong objections to the vote-reform campaign in Bihar during the last four months and had even dragged the Election Commission to the Supreme Court. Although that matter is still under consideration of the apex court, the overall impression that emerged during the hearing was that most of the objections were exaggerated. For this reason, the Supreme Court did not stop the program announced by the Election Commission for the Bihar Assembly elections nor did it interfere in any other way.
Yes, it openly encouraged the Election Commission to make the vote revision process more transparent and the Election Commission also accepted its instructions or suggestions. Not only in Bihar, but also in Karnataka, in the case of illegal deduction of votes (which Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had called the ‘atomic bomb’ of vote theft), nothing has come to light so far that can be considered an ‘atomic bomb’.
The government in that state is also of the Congress and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by it has been able to find out the cases of illegal deduction of votes in only a few wards. But this number is also in a few hundreds, not in thousands or lakhs.
According to the data released by the Election Commission, the exercise of deep correction of voter lists has been done 9 times in Indian democracy.
The last revision was in 2002-03. As per democratic norms, such revision should be done after every ten years, especially in a country like India where 99.10 crore people are entitled to vote. Learning from the controversies surrounding the Bihar phase of the revision, the Election Commission has ordered the completion of the revision campaign in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar, Puducherry and Lakshadweep, which began on November 4, within three months. It has made it clear that those whose names or those of their parents appear in these lists need not produce proof of Indian citizenship.
Those who became voters after 2003 were asked to produce any of the 11 documents to prove their citizenship, which were also used during the Bihar cleanliness drive. Aadhaar card is included as the 12th document, but along with it, a document has also been asked to be produced that shows that the voter or his parents were living in India before 2003. It is worth mentioning that the Election Commission had taken the stand during the hearing on Bihar that only an Indian citizen can become a voter for Indian elections. Therefore, it has the constitutional right to ask for some proof of Indian citizenship. This argument was also accepted by the Supreme Court.
India is the largest democracy in the world. Its electoral system is often praised. The fact that the process of changing governments through elections has also been a proud achievement of Indian democracy. The amendments made in the electoral system according to the needs of the time to make the electoral exercise fair and free have also been beneficial. Therefore, every effort to make the electoral system cleaner should receive support from every political party, apart from the common citizens. The number of those who raise doubts about the effectiveness of voting machines is still not less, but most of us voters have seen and felt how simple and economical they have made the process of casting and counting votes. In such an environment, it is the duty of every voter to participate in the work of revising the voter lists. This is in the interest of both Indian democracy and his own.
