Ruckus in House over electoral reforms, SIR, Bihar poll results
NEW DELHI: The debate on electoral reforms in the Lok Sabha turned combative on Tuesday, with the Opposition targeting the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the Treasury benches firing back with the BJPs emphatic victory in the Bihar elections. Initiating the discussion, Congress MP Manish Tewari said the Election Commission has no legal basis to conduct SIR, and it must be stopped while making a slew of suggestions for election reforms, including mandating a 100 per cent counting of VVPAT slips or reverting to paper ballots. He also called for disallowing direct cash transfers to people ahead of polls and adding two members -- the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Chief Justice of India -- to the existing three-member panel to select the chief election commissioner and the two election commissioners. The Congress leader said the 2023 law stipulates that the panel to select the election commission and the two election commissioners should comprise the prime minister, the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha and a Cabinet minister. Tewari said that BR Ambedkar ensured that the EC would be a permanent body. It was expected of the EC that it would work as a neutral umpire, but regretfully I have to say that many members sitting on this side (pointing to opposition benches) and many people feel the need to raise questions over its neutrality, Tewari said. Attacking the government, Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee said that the SIR exercise aims to delete electors, not authenticate them. Calling the exercise arbitrary, Banerjee asked, Why should an elector, whose name was there in 2024 (voter list), be told that he is not an elector because his name was not there in 2002? Deletion of voters, he said, would undermine the democratic process. Now, PM Modi decides through the EC who will be a voter. Insisting that nobody is above the law, Banerjee said the Supreme Court would have the final word on the legality of the ECs actions. Banerjee also criticised the poll authoritys approach on delimitation and the use of digital applications to verify family relationships in voter lists. Countering the charges, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said the SIR has been held multiple times since 1952 and is required to clean up electoral rolls, which change due to migration and rapid urbanisation. He accused Congress of engaging in vote theft since the first Lok Sabha elections, including rigging elections.
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