The newspaper called for the chief election commissioner’s resignation and argued that the SIR process was removing electors on a large scale.
In an editorial, The Hindu called for the resignation of India’s Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and argued that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was leading to the mass exclusion of citizens. The newspaper linked protests in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere on October 2 to its view that a process described as a roll-cleanup was making it harder for people to retain voting rights.
The editorial cited the scale of the exercise. It said nearly 13.4 crore electors had been removed from draft rolls across 30 States and Union Territories, about 14 per cent of the electorate before revision. The share removed was 8.3 per cent in Bihar in the first phase, 12.9 per cent across 12 States and Union Territories in the second, and 17 per cent in the third. The newspaper argued that the process puts the burden on electors to prove eligibility and requires people removed from draft lists to apply again, provided they first discover their names are missing.
The editorial said a “logical discrepancies” criterion first used in West Bengal had been extended elsewhere, and that Form 6 was changed without a corresponding amendment to the rules. It also cited 16.1 lakh requests in West Bengal to remove electors already cleared by judicial officers. A centralised database in New Delhi helped process the requests, the editorial said. It interpreted the Election Commission’s subsequent instruction to local officials to restore deleted voters as an implicit admission that the process had disenfranchised some people.
More than 700 protesters were detained in Delhi, 11 Metro stations were closed and internet access was shut down around Jantar Mantar, according to the editorial. In Mumbai, police denied permission for a gathering at Shivaji Park, but protesters assembled anyway. The newspaper argued that the exercise threatened universal adult franchise and said responsibility rested not only with the Chief Election Commissioner but also with commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, who it said could have overruled the commission majority.