The election commission letter to Bihar chief electoral officer regarding intensive electoral roll revision is problematic and fails the test of good faith. It is true that electoral roll revision is an important step for conducting fair elections and issues like birth, death and migration make such revisions necessary. These are continuous improvements made by ground reporting by booth level officials and electronic rationalization, but periodically a door to door survey is required. As such the 24th June order is neither extraordinary nor illegal. Yet its prescriptions and timing don’t inspire confidence. The secrecy exercised by the commission and the immediacy of implementation are not in the spirit of democracy. Why were the political parties not taken into confidence, before any such order? Why was Bihar chosen and that too only 4 months before the assembly elections are due? Why was the process not carried out before the general elections last year? Why is NRC included in the list of documents when Bihar has not had any NRC? Is it an attempt to implement the NRC through the back door? There are many such questions that arise from this arbitrary process and timing and the election commission needs to address them. For the majority of our population any sort of documentation is a breach in their nameless unidentified existence. The state had never reached deep enough, through their remoteness, to identify and register them. It was perhaps the major reason why they enthusiastically accepted intrusive laws like aadhar. The sad reality is that despite universal health, universal education and universal adult franchise, huge minorities exist on the fringes where none of them have reached. Born at home, never attended school, owned land or benefited from any government programs they exist oblivious to and from the system. Asking these marginalized people for documentary evidence of their bonafide is cruel and mischievous. Documentation might just become the new divide amongst many, that our country lives with. In the light of recent allegations of willful disregard to transparency and fairness on the commission, especially after the Maharashtra elections, the commission needs to earn back the trust of the stakeholders before carrying out such huge reforms. The commission would have to rely entirely upon the state machinery, and much of it before the notification of elections, to implement them. The last decade has shown that the state apparatus has not been able to withstand political appropriation by the current regime. It is for the election commission to demonstrate its willingness to allay the apprehension of the people and the opposition.
Legitimacy of democracy at stake
