SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: Economist and political commentator Parakala Prabhakar has been among the sharpest critics of the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which he has called a “bloodless political genocide.” Prabhakar, who is married to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, wants the exercise scrapped and the ECI disbanded and rebuilt.
He spoke to Siasat.com’s Osama Salman over the phone on Sunday, November 1, a day after a civil society public hearing on the SIR in Hyderabad. The revision has no legal sanction, he argued, though the Supreme Court upheld the ECI’s power to conduct it in its May 27 judgment.
He also spoke about the Supreme Court, the Opposition’s response and why he now pins his hopes on a Gandhian agitation.
Excerpts from the interview…
You have called for scrapping the SIR. Why do you think it goes beyond cleaning the rolls?
Parakala Prabhakar (PP): First of all, there is no basis for an SIR. It finds no mention in the Constitution, the Representation of the People Act or the rules governing voter registration.
No SIR was ever conducted in this country. The law allows a special revision of a constituency or part of it under special circumstances, like floods or fires, with the reasons recorded in writing. Former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi is on record that our rolls had reached 99 per cent accuracy.
I challenge anybody who was a voter in 2002, when JM Lyngdoh conducted that revision. Does anybody recollect taking loads of documents to offices to prove their eligibility? Never. Nobody was served notice, ever.
The ECI told the Supreme Court on affidavit that a study had found irregularities because of migration, urbanisation, illegal immigration, deaths and duplicates. It won’t say who did the study or share a copy. In Right to Information (RTI) replies, it says there are no file notings on the decision to hold the SIR and no guidelines from 2002. What kind of an operation is this?
Yet the Home Minister and others in responsible positions ask whether you want your MPs, MLAs, sarpanch or Prime Minister elected by ghuspetiyas (infiltrators). That is how they mobilise support for this fraudulent exercise.
On May 27, the Supreme Court gave the ECI four weeks to refer non-citizens found on the rolls to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act. Five full months are over. Not one list has been submitted.
Hindustan Times had reported that about 1,600 foreigners have been detected in the SIR exercise.
PP: The ECI itself has announced nothing on foreigners. Of the 26 states and Union Territories that reporter wrote to, only 11 responded and six gave figures. They add up to 1,600.
In Karnataka, 99.06 lakh voters were deleted and the chief electoral officer (CEO) said 771 were foreigners. Of them, 588 are Nepalese working in Bengaluru households and 183 are Kannadigas who took citizenship in the UK, the US or Europe. No Rohingyas, no Bangladeshis.
The stories of hordes of Bangladeshis running away are a lie, a propaganda to target a particular section of our nation.
Anybody who is 18 plus is a voter, so the rolls should more or less match the adult population, roughly 103 crore by the government’s technical committee on population. Every revision should push the number up. But it has come down instead. Bihar has 8.2 crore adults but 7.42 crore electors after the SIR, a deficit of about 80 lakh. Uttar Pradesh is about 3 crore short.
And the deletions fall disproportionately on Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis and the poor, like migrant and daily wage labourers, and among them, on women. This is not an exercise to include people. It is an exercise to exclude people.
Do you believe Hyderabad is witnessing a disproportionate impact of SIR?
PP: Look at our own doorstep. Malakpet polled 1,32,000 votes in the 2023 Assembly elections, and its SIR deletions are 1,47,000. Yakutpura polled 1,40,000, and its deletions are 1,54,000. That is more than everyone who voted.
In Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, booth number 33, now renumbered 38, had 909 voters. After the SIR, 908 were deleted.
So, in Hyderabad, it is not disproportionate deletion. It is targeted deletion. No doubt about that.
PP: Look at Jubilee Hills, where the deletions of Muslims was 29 per cent, and Nampally, where it is 58 per cent. So, huge disproportionate Muslims were targeted in this.
You want the ECI disbanded. What specific institutional reforms would you propose to replace something as critical as the EC?
PP: After the Indian Express investigation, it is clear that not everything is all right in the ECI. But even if all three commissioners were on the same page on the SIR, I would want it disbanded, not suspended.
(The Indian Express reported in September that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had put objections on record at least 14 times in 10 months, saying some decisions were issued without their knowledge or approval.)
The selection committee has a two-is-to-one majority. The Chief Justice of India (CJI) was tipped aside for a minister appointed by the Prime Minister, and the commissioners were given lifetime immunity, which is unconstitutional. And look at its conduct. You take out 13.7 crore, of which 1,600 are foreigners, and that too not your favourite foreigners like Bangladeshis. It has become opaque, unaccountable and unapproachable.
The 2023 law should be thrown out of the window. A new ECI, appointed by an evenly balanced committee, must be transparent, accountable, approachable and impartial.
If genuine voters are removed, who should be held responsible and what legal recourse should affected citizens have?
PP: At the Hyderabad public hearing on October 31, I saw people come forward to talk about their situation. The remedy the ECI offers is based on a lie. It asks people to say they are first-time voters [by applying afresh on Form 6, meant for new voters]. That is no remedy.
Both the ECI and the SIR are untenable. Our demand should be two things: scrap the SIR and restore every eligible voter on the deleted list. Let us not normalise this illegal act by working with it.
Citizens look at the judiciary for relief. But, from what we’ve been seeing, the Supreme Court has particularly been quite soft on the EC and the ruling party. What is the way forward?
PP: I do not have much hope from the judiciary today. It has been accepting everything the ECI says uncritically, rather than questioning it. It should have asked for a copy of the study the ECI cited on irregularities in the rolls. And shouldn’t it ask [about its May 27 direction to refer suspected non-citizens], we gave you four weeks, five months have passed, what have you done? They are not asking. What do we do?
The only way forward is feet on the ground, a peaceful, Gandhian agitation. Only that can rescue our republic. It might also push the judiciary to look at these things more closely and critically.
You’re saying this, but with the recent protests in Delhi, the police brutally cracked down on peaceful protesters. The Supreme Court did not really come to the rescue of peaceful protesters. So really, is there a way to come out of this tangle?
PP: When you protest against a government that is not heeding you, what do you expect? That they will felicitate you with garlands? That is for rapists in this country now. The ruling party felicitates people who took part in arson and rape, not people fighting for their rights. People have to be ready for repression. This is not going to be an easy walk in the garden.
Do you think the opposition has been able to mount a sustained challenge against the SIR?
PP: On October 31, the Opposition conducted an “impeachment” of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. But it is too late in the day. With call centres and booths helping people with this document or that form, they normalised the SIR.
From day one, they should have asked, show us the records of when you did an SIR before. No party asked. They woke up only now.
If they get Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation and celebrate, I will be the most disappointed person. Replacing him makes no difference. The process has to be scrapped and the deleted put back on the rolls. They mobilised huge numbers at Ramlila Maidan, but will they settle for his sacking?
When Dharmendra Pradhan quit as Education Minister and Pralhad Joshi replaced him, everybody thought they had won. That won’t help.
Do you think Telangana’s leadership is doing enough to address concerns of SIR and voter deletions?
PP: No. These gross irregularities have not even become a big issue. The public hearing of SIR-affected voters in Hyderabad was held by civil society. Which political party did anything?
At what point does the weakening of independent institutions become a threat to electoral democracy?
PP: It was compromised when votes polled and counted did not tally, when no ruling party leader was pulled up under the model code of conduct and when polling was staggered over seven phases with absolutely no logic. Andhra Pradesh’s 25 seats voted on one day, Odisha’s 21 over four phases. Tamil Nadu’s 39 seats voted on one day, Bihar’s 40 over seven. What logic is that?
They wanted the phasing done so their voters and leaders could be moved around. The institution is completely compromised.
The BJP won West Bengal for the first time this year, and much of that is being credited to the SIR. Has that emboldened the push?
PP: The emboldenment came from Bihar. Bihar was the first. Then came the second phase, in which 12 states and Union Territories, including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, went through the SIR.
Read the full transcript of the interview below:
SOURCE : SIASAT
