July 10, 2025 _ Issued by Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI(ML)
The Supreme Court in its order has taken note of the fundamental constitutional and legal anomalies and improprieties underlying the EC's sudden SIR campaign in Bihar and also the logistical issues and inconvenience being experienced by common voters of Bihar. In this sense the Supreme Court order corroborates the basic fears and objections of the electorate reflected in the bunch of petitions being heard by the apex court. The Supreme Court advice given to the EC to include Aadhaar, voter card and ration card in the acceptable list of documents "in the interest of justice" voices the common demand of every voter on the ground.
The Supreme Court hearing should also take note of two most basic worries expressed by the Bihar electorate on the basis of the actual experience of the first fifteen days of the SIR drive in Bihar. Most electors are complaining about non-receipt of any acknowledgement about the enumeration forms being submitted. While the EC is citing numbers to claim smooth and rapid progress of the drive on the ground, most electors do not even the comfort of having a record of having submitted the enumeration forms. Migrant workers, including those working abroad, and others currently out of the state for any emergency are finding it extremely difficult to submit enumeration forms and hence remain particularly vulnerable to the danger of disenfranchisement and consequent threat to citizenship.
The other big concerns are the difficulties being encountered by the electors in obtaining domicile and caste certificates which can be used as supporting documents and the enormous discretionary power being granted to the ERO to decide on cases of forms without documents on the basis of 'local investigations'. The number of electors unable to provide any document from the existing list of eleven documents is likely to run into tens of thousands in every constituency and leaving it to EROs to decide on such large numbers of cases without any transparency could pave the way for a whole lot of biased, arbitrary and inaccurate deletions and inclusions in the final roll.
The people of Bihar are becoming aware of the danger of disenfranchisement that looms large and are getting ready to fight hard to defend their hard won constitutional right to vote. The widespread participation in and support for yesterday's chakka jam action in Bihar has shown us glimpses of the people's anxiety and anger around the Votebandi drive and also their resolve to defend the constitutional guarantee of universal adult franchise with all their might.
