Activists say India ID rules could deny vote to millions

India’s top election body is facing mounting criticism over its sweeping revision of the rules around voter registration ahead of an important state election in Bihar, with activists and opposition groups raising alarm over the potential for large-scale disenfranchisement in one of the country’s poorest states.

- NAMITA SINGH

The drive to verify the identity of all of the state’s 78 million voters, launched on 24 June ahead of elections later this year, involves strict documentation requirements, triggering concerns that it could lead to the exclusion of vulnerable groups, especially those unable to produce the extensive paperwork required to prove their citizenship.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has said that some 49.6 million voters whose names were included in a similar exercise in 2003 need not submit any further documents. This leaves almost 30 million voters potentially vulnerable.

While the Election Commission insists that the process, known as a Special Intensive Revision (SIR), is a routine update to ensure the accuracy of electoral rolls, opposition leaders, civil society groups and petitioners in the Supreme Court have warned that it echoes the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, which left nearly 2 million people at risk of statelessness.

Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar defended the move, stating that the commission had engaged extensively with political parties. “The ECI has invited all recognised political parties for interaction. No one was satisfied with the current status of electoral rolls for one reason or the other,” he said, noting that more than 5,000 meetings have been held over the past four months with 28,000 party representatives. The electoral rolls are being revised in Bihar for the first time since 2003. Under the new process, an estimated 29.3 million voters whose names are not listed on the 2003 roll must now submit at least one of 11 specified documents to establish their eligibility. The deadline to submit these documents is 25 July.

The draft rolls will be published on 1 August, and there will be a further period from 1 August to 1 September during which electors will be able to raise claims or objections before the final list of voters is released on 30 September.