Not enough clarity on voter lists

Elections 2019 is riddled with uncertainties that go beyond the poll outcome. Forget the controversy surrounding the reliability of EVMs, in the build up to the polling process, anxious citizens have been queueing up before Election Commission offices to ascertain if their names are on the voting list. The Net savvy have been checking on the EC’s website to ensure their names are not “missing.” In Delhi, rumours abound that thousands may find their names have been deleted. Anonymous phone calls, some from the Aam Aadmi Party, have been imploring citizens to confirm if they still qualify to cast their votes on polling day.

In all this confusion, the Election Commission has not come out with any explicit statement to assuage the fears of citizens. Instead, it has placed ads in the media at regular intervals, directing citizens to go on its web link or contact a toll-free number to confirm their status on the voters list. This has fuelled the fears of those who suspect they may have been disenfranchised intentionally or unintentionally. To add to the confusion, the EC has confirmed to a Delhi court that names were indeed found deleted. Revision of the voters list has hitherto meant adding new citizens to the existing roster and not deleting those already on it.

It is still not clear whether the list went through a process of addition and deletion and who engineered it. If it did happen, no one is the wiser about the criteria employed to determine whether a citizen’s name should be retained or struck off. Reports in the media coming from several parts of the country — Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi among others — seem to suggest that the lists have been pruned. There are even serious allegations that this was done to exclude minority community voters. Given this situation, the EC should have provided clarity on several issues pertaining to the election process that has come into the public domain.

In earlier general elections there has rarely ever been such controversies in the run-up. The poll process, like justice, must not only be fair. It must also appear to be fair.

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