Latest news with #RepresentationofthePeopleAct
Time of India
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Rahul Gandhi's 'vote theft' claim an afterthought, says EC
NEW DELHI: Election Commission of India on Thursday said leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi 's allegations of "vote theft" during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka appear to be an afterthought, given that Congress neither filed a single appeal with election officials after publication of the state's final electoral roll in Jan 2024 nor did it challenge the results in state high court through an election petition. Talking to reporters in Parliament complex, Rahul claimed that Congress has "concrete 100% proof" of "cheating in an LS seat" in Karnataka and warned that "if you (EC) think you are going to get away with this... you are mistaken... we are going to come for you". The Congress MP said opposition would ensure that EC is held accountable. Dismissing his charges as "baseless" in a statement, EC said: "It is highly unfortunate that rather than filing an election petition as per section 80 of Representation of the People (RP)Act, 1951, or if filed, awaiting verdict of HC, he has not only made baseless allegations but also chosen to threaten EC, which is a constitutional body." With his allegations coming more than a year after the LS polls result, EC said it was wondering why "such baseless and threatening claims were being made against it and the CEC, and that too now." It added that the losing Congress candidates did not file a single election petition to challenge the result, despite Representation of the People Act, 1951 allowing this within 45 days of declaration of result. Others, however, did file 10 election petitions in HC. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Villas For Sale in Dubai Might Surprise You Dubai villas | search ads Get Deals Undo Countering Rahul's "unwarranted threatening statements", the Karnataka chief electoral officer (CEO) on X said copies of the draft and final electoral roll for the state's 224 assembly seats were provided to recognised parties, including Congress, on Oct 27, 2023, and Jan 22, 2024, respectively. Between publication of the draft and final roll, around 9.2 lakh claims and objections were received and settled across 34 districts. Neither Congress nor any other entity avail the two-stage appeal option available under Representation of the People Act, 1951, the post said. Meanwhile, backing RJD functionary Tejashwi Yadav suggested possibility of boycotting Bihar elections over the special revision of electoral rolls issue, Congress' K C Venugopal said a political party's biggest weapon in a democracy is the voters' list and if that is compromised, with names being deleted and lists not being clean, then you are challenging democracy. "Let there not be an election and there be one party. Let Election Commission rule that. That is what Yadav meant by his comment about boycotting," Venugopal said.
The Hindu
a day ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
The fault lines in India's electoral architecture are visible
As the Election Commission of India (ECI) nears the completion of the first phase of its Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar (August 1, 2025), there has been a predictable cycle of contestation. Allegations of a disenfranchisement of the poor, minorities and migrants, are saturating political discourse. Opposition leaders have criticised the ECI's methodology as partisan and exclusionary, framing routine deletions as targeted assaults on vulnerable constituencies. Conversely, supporters of the exercise have invoked the need for sanctity of election rolls and dismissed such accusations as cynical politicking. Both positions are inadequate and fail to interrogate the structural incongruities of India's electoral architecture. They conflate fixed notions of 'ordinary residence' with an increasingly mobile citizenry and obscure the deeper problem. The law itself is poorly attuned to the socio-economic realities that it purports to govern. The ECI, though institutionally constrained, has been content to administer this dissonance rather than challenge it. Historical context The Representation of the People Act, 1950 was drafted in a post-colonial context of largely sedentary populations — over 82% rural and less than 8% migratory at the time. It assumed that most Indians lived and voted where they were born. The assumption has endured despite evidence to the contrary. While present laws privilege fixity as the basis of political membership in a constituency, India's internal migrants number over 450 million, making up 37% of the population. In Bihar, the proportion is even higher. Bihar records the highest rate of internal migration in India — 36% of households report at least having one migrant. Over 20% of the working-age population lives outside the State at any given point in time. This distinction is more than semantic. It produces material exclusions. Census 2011 already documented that nearly 13.9 million Biharis lived outside the State. Today, the number is likely to be between 17 million to 18 million. According to Bihar's Chief Electoral Office, over 1.2 million names were deleted across the State this year. The majority were removed due to 'non-residency' at the time of verification. In districts with high rates of out-migration such as Gopalganj and Sitamarhi, deletions approached 5%-7% of enrolled voters. These are not marginal figures and highlight the structural disenfranchisement of those whose economic precarity necessitates migration. Two distinct concepts Much of the public debate collapses two distinct concepts — citizenship and residency. Citizenship, as enshrined in the Constitution and the Citizenship Act, is of juridical status. One is either, or is not, a citizen of the Republic of India. Residency, by contrast, is a contingent and contextual condition, determining the constituency in which a citizen is enrolled to vote. The Representation of the People Act makes residency, not citizenship, the operative criterion for inclusion in a constituency roll. Millions of workers circulate between their natal villages and industrial zones elsewhere, caught in a liminal space — neither fully here nor there. For the migrant subject, disenfranchisement is not merely bureaucratic but existential — a quiet but potent signal of not belonging. This predicament of legislative inertia is more than the result of administrative indifference. The ECI has inherited this mismatch between law and reality. Its institutional response has been of administrative minimalism — a rigid adherence to procedural compliance that often comes at the cost of substantive inclusion. Neither is impartiality neutrality in the face of structural disadvantage nor is 'cleaning up' the rolls synonymous with justice if the very rules of residency systematically exclude certain classes of citizens. Examples from abroad Other democracies have confronted similar dilemmas with greater imagination. In the United States, an estimated 30 million-35 million voters reside in States other than their home precincts. Absentee and mail-in ballots allow them to remain registered in their home districts while voting from where they live. The Philippines facilitates absentee voting for its 1.8 million overseas workers — turnout rates exceed 60%. Australia deploys mobile polling stations in remote and transient communities, contributing to over 90% voter participation. These examples demonstrate that the perceived trade-off between roll integrity and inclusiveness is neither inevitable nor necessary. It is a function of institutional design and political will. The ECI is correct to say that it cannot rewrite the law on its own. But it must aggressively advocate for reform. Its own experience in administering rolls in migrant-heavy States is evidence enough of the need for legislative review. At a minimum, it should pilot alternative models of enrolment and outreach within its existing authority. Political actors are obviously complicit in perpetuating confusion. They prefer to instrumentalise disenfranchisement as a mobilisation tool rather than invest in educating voters and assisting them through claims and objections processes. Draft rolls are theoretically open to public scrutiny but literacy barriers, poor communication and burdens of migratory livelihoods make such procedural safeguards inaccessible to most. Surveys show that over 60% of voters in Bihar were unaware of the claims and objections window. Among migrants, awareness drops below 25%. Exhorting 'voter responsibility' — as much of the official discourse does — risks bordering on victim-blaming. To defend the ECI is important. But to demand more of it and of ourselves is imperative. Shubhrastha is a columnist, an author and Founder, The Churn
The Hindu
a day ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Decoding ECI's counter affidavit on SIR
The story so far: The Election Commission of India (ECI) filed a counter affidavit in the Supreme Court on July 21, in response to the writ petition challenging the constitutionality of the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise currently underway in Bihar. The text in the 789-page ECI affidavit is only 88 pages long; bulky annexures run into almost 700 pages. Around 625 pages of these annexures comprise representations received by the ECI from various political parties, along with their annexures. What's the rationale for a citizenship test? The compendium of complaints regarding defects in electoral rolls received by the ECI in 2024-2025 mostly contains those filed by BJP units from Delhi, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. One complaint each has been received from the AAP in Delhi, AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and the Maha Vikas Agadi (Congress, NCP-SP and Shiv Sena) in Maharashtra. A preliminary review of the complaints annexed with the ECI's affidavit reveals that they mostly pertain to typical defects like duplication of names in the voter list, non-deletion of deceased voters, exclusion of eligible voters and fake or fraudulent voter registration. None of the complaints involve the electoral rolls of Bihar, nor does any of the complaints allege instances of illegal migrants from foreign countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, etc. , being included in the electoral rolls in any State. The complaints, which account for almost 80% of the volume of ECI's counter affidavit, do not provide any evidence or justification for the ongoing SIR exercise in Bihar or a nationwide citizenship test of electors across the country, for which the affidavit vehemently argues. Is it legally tenable? The counter affidavit invokes Article 326 which specifies that 'every person who is a citizen of India... shall be entitled to be registered as a voter', and also Section 15 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 which mandates the preparation of electoral rolls 'under the superintendence, direction and control' of the ECI, to insist on its having statutory authority to undertake a 'de novo' preparation of electoral rolls, requiring electors already registered in the electoral rolls to submit fresh documentary proof of their citizenship. The affidavit also rebuffs the apex court's advisory to include Aadhaar card, the Elector's Photo Identity card (EPIC) and ration card in the list of permissible documents for the SIR exercise. There are several fallacies in the ECI's arguments. First, the SIR process shifts the onus of citizenship proof on all existing electors whose names were registered by the ECI through due process. Another due process is also available for the deletion of non-citizens from electoral rolls on the basis of specific complaints backed by evidence. Have those due processes been rendered dysfunctional by the overwhelming nature of inclusion errors vis-a-vis illegal migrants? If so, the ECI's affidavit should have been able to present precise data on the number of complaints received on the inclusion of foreign nationals or illegal migrants in the electoral rolls of Bihar, and all other States for that matter. In the absence of such evidence, ECI's logic that inclusion in electoral rolls through summary revisions are only provisional and only those added or verified through intensive revisions like SIR have more authenticity, does not hold. Second, the Representation of the People Act, 1950, does not make any distinction between electors added through summary revisions and those added through 'special intensive revisions'. While section 21(3) of the law permits the ECI to direct a 'special revision' for individual constituencies or their parts, the word 'intensive' does not find any mention in the law. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 were amended in 1987 to introduce two separate categories of electoral roll revisions, summary and intensive. However, even the 1960 rules do not provide any specific definition or modalities for 'intensive' revisions. The statutory foundation of SIR, therefore, remains fuzzy. Third, the arguments provided by ECI's affidavit in rejecting the Supreme Court's advice to include EPIC, as one of the documents to prove eligibility, contradicts the exemption granted to electors included in the 2003 electoral roll from furnishing any document under SIR 2025 other than 'the relevant extracts of the said part showing their name in the 2003 electoral roll'. ECI's affidavit states that the children of electors included in the 2003 rolls have also been allowed to use this avenue to prove their eligibility. Such privileging of the inclusions in the 2003 electoral rolls, over and above all electoral rolls published by the ECI in two subsequent decades, is legally questionable. The ECI's affidavit mentions that the 2003 Bihar SIR guidelines prescribed four indicative documents as proof of citizenship, namely 'NRC Register where available; Citizenship Certificate; valid passport; or Birth Certificate.' However, a copy of the 2003 SIR guidelines have not been provided with the affidavit. Was there any house-to-house enumeration and citizenship verification for the entire electorate during the 2003 Bihar SIR on the basis of such documentary requirements? How many illegal migrants were detected and deleted from rolls in 2003? These facts need to be ascertained and debated before accepting inclusions in the 2003 electoral rolls as probative evidence of citizenship under SIR. Fourth, the ECI's affidavit asserts the applicability of the contrived citizenship criteria introduced by the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2003 in SIR 2025; whereby (a) Each voter has to submit documentary proof of his/her date and place of birth; (b) For those born between July 1, 1987 and December 2, 2004, additional documentary proof of date and place of birth of either father or mother is required; and (c) For those voters born after December 2, 2004, both parents' date and place of birth are required to be submitted. The constitutionality of this controversial citizenship amendment legislation, which had proposed to introduce a National Register of Indian Citizens (NRC), remains under challenge before the apex court. The rules under this Act were notified even before the CAA, 2003, was passed and notified, casting doubts over its legal status. Most importantly, the Registrar General of India never issued any order to initiate the NRC, as stipulated in the citizenship rules. Hence, the NRC does not exist anywhere in India, except for the State of Assam. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had clarified in December 2019 that his Cabinet had never discussed the initiation of the NRC since 2014. When the authorities statutorily mandated to initiate the NRC and its underlying citizenship scheme apropos CAA, 2003 have decided not to proceed with it till date, can the ECI claim to have any legal mandate to implement the same citizenship test in Bihar, in lieu of an electoral roll revision? What will be the impact? The ECI's counter affidavit has tried to counter criticisms regarding the exclusionary nature of the SIR exercise by highlighting that filled up enumeration forms have already been collected and digitised from over 90% of the 7.89 crore electors in Bihar. The moot point here is that the ECI's affidavit does not disclose the number or proportion of digitised enumeration forms which are accompanied with the required documents. Rather, the affidavit mentions that 'each elector who has submitted the enumeration form with or without documents will be included in the draft roll to be published August 1, 2025.' Thus, the coverage of over 90% of the electors in the SIR process has been attained by postponing the requirement for document submission along with the enumeration forms. The scrutiny of enumeration forms and documents by the electoral registration officers are to commence only after the draft rolls are published. This does not testify for the inclusivity of the entire SIR process. The status of the SIR exercise reported in the ECI's affidavit contains data till July 18, 2025. The updated status provided by the ECI's press note on July 22 is reproduced in Table 1. Till then, around 21.35 lakh (2.7%) electors were yet to receive and submit their enumeration forms. Major political parties of Bihar were officially requested by the ECI to connect with the remaining electors, through their functionaries and booth level agents. Till July 24, around 7 lakh forms were not received. Inability of the ECI in ensuring cent percent coverage through its own machinery of booth level officers (BLOs) and volunteers further exposes the impracticality of the SIR schedule. Moreover, over 53 lakh (6.7%) electors were not found at their residential addresses by the BLOs. While around 1 lakh among them are reported as 'not traceable' and another 7 lakh as multiple enrolments, the numbers of deceased electors at over 21.6 lakh (2.7%) and those permanently migrated at 31.5 lakh (4%), are quite significant. Whether errors are involved in such exclusions can be known only after the publication of the draft rolls. The constituency-wise distribution of these exclusions also remains unreported. The impact of deletion of migrated electors can be substantial if they are clustered within a few constituencies and demographics. Why is ECI not accepting Aadhaar, ration cards? ECI's non-acceptance of the apex court's advisory on including Aadhaar and ration cards in the list of indicative documents rests on tenuous grounds. The ECI's own enumeration form for SIR 2025 seeks the Aadhaar number from all electors, albeit on a voluntary basis. The ECI's affidavit states that statutorily 'Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship', which is specious logic, because statutorily the ECI has no mandate to conduct a citizenship test. In the case of ration cards, the ECI has cited 'widespread existence of fake ration cards' as the ground for non-acceptance. A data table in ECI's affidavit on the coverage of some of the eleven eligibility documents for SIR 2025 in Bihar show 13.89 crore 'Residence certificates' and 8.72 crore caste certificates issued from 2011 to 2025, far exceeding the total number of electors in the electoral rolls. If residence certificates can be accepted as eligibility proof of SIR 2025, despite their total number exceeding Bihar's current aggregate population, how can ration cards be rejected as a document on the grounds of being forgery-prone? Any widely accessible official card or document in a vast country like India with millions of poor and illiterate citizens would be prone to counterfeits — currency notes offering the most common example. Solutions need to be found in plugging systemic loopholes, enhanced vigilance and effectively designed counter-measures. Unless the ECI revises its rigid insistence on citizenship determination, the Bihar SIR exercise is likely to result in a fiasco bigger than the four-year-long NRC process in Assam between 2015 and 2019, which was eventually rejected by all those who demanded it after reportedly spending ₹1,600 crore of public money. (Prasenjit Bose is an economist and activist)
NDTV
a day ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Day Before Form Deadline, 61 Lakh Voters At Risk Of Exclusion In Bihar
A day before the deadline for submitting the enumeration forms as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Election Commission of India has said 61.1 lakh voters are set to be removed from Bihar's electoral rolls. The Election Commission (EC) said on Thursday that officials have reached out to 99% of voters so far. Out of 7.9 crore electors, 7.21 crore enumeration forms have been submitted and digitised, and only 7 lakh have not returned their forms. Of the 61.1 lakh voters that may be struck off the rolls, the Election Commission said 21.6 lakh are dead, 31.5 lakh have permanently moved outside Bihar, 7 lakh are registered as electors in multiple locations, and 1 lakh are untraceable. If the figure stands, on average, 25,144 names could be removed per constituency across Bihar's 243 Assembly seats. This is expected to have a major impact on results in the Assembly elections, likely to be held in a couple of months, because the last polls saw very narrow victory margins in several seats. In the 2020 elections, 11 seats were decided by a margin of less than 1,000 votes, 35 seats by less than 3,000 votes, and 52 by less than 5,000 votes. The opposition Grand Alliance - which has the RJD and the Congress as members, among others, and has been opposing the exercise, calling it rushed - lost in 27 constituencies by under 5,000 votes, 18 seats by less than 3,000 votes and six with a margin of less than 1,000 votes. Rahul Gandhi vs Election Commission Parties in the opposition INDIA bloc have also protested in Parliament against the SIR, accusing the Election Commission of irregularities. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi criticised the poll body, saying, "If you think you will get away with it, you are wrong. We have 100% proof of the Election Commission allowing cheating in a seat in Karnataka. This is a pattern: in one constituency after another, new votes are being added while old voters are deleted." Terming the claims "baseless", the EC said that instead of following due process under Section 80 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, Mr Gandhi chose to make public accusations and threats against a constitutional body.
News18
a day ago
- Politics
- News18
Rahul, EC engage in war of words over Karnataka LS poll cheating
New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) Rahul Gandhi and the Election Commission (EC) were engaged in a war of words on Thursday over alleged 'cheating" in a Karnataka constituency during last year's Lok Sabha polls, with the Congress leader warning the poll authority that it will not get away with this 'because we are going to come for you". A spokesperson of the EC wondered as to why such 'baseless and threatening allegations are being made against the CEC and that too now". Gandhi said the Congress has 'concrete, 100 per cent proof" that the EC allowed cheating in a constituency in the southern state during the Lok Sabha polls 2024 and warned the election watchdog that it will not get away with this 'because we are going to come for you". Responding to Gandhi's statement, the EC said it is 'highly unfortunate" that rather than filing an election petition in accordance with section 80 of the Representation of the People Act, or if filed, awaiting the verdict of the high court, he has not only made 'baseless allegations" but also 'chosen to threaten" a constitutional body. The EC spokesperson said as far as the Karnataka electoral rolls of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are concerned, not a single appeal was filed with any of the district magistrates or the chief electoral officer of the state — a valid legal remedy available to the Congress under section 24 of the RP Act. As far as the conduct of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls is concerned, of the 10 election petitions, not a single one was filed by any losing Congress candidate as a legal remedy available to the party under section 80 of the RP Act, he pointed out. Gandhi accused the EC of not functioning as the Election Commission of India and 'not doing its job". Asked about the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav's reported remarks that the option of boycotting the state Assembly polls, due later in the year, remains open, Gandhi told reporters in the Parliament House complex that the Congress has 'concrete, 100 per cent proof" that the EC allowed cheating in a seat in Karnataka. 'Not 90 per cent, when we decide to show it to you, it is a 100 per cent proof," the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said. 'We just looked at one constituency and we found this. I am absolutely convinced that constituency after constituency, this is the drama that is taking place…. I want to send a message to the Election Commission — if you think you are going to get away with this, if your officers think they are going to get away with this, you are mistaken. You are not going to get away with this because we are going to come for you," he said. PTI NAB RC (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: July 24, 2025, 20:00 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
