After Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra moved the Supreme Court against the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) decision to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has followed suit.
On Sunday, RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha filed a writ petition in the top court, calling the exercise “not only hasty and ill-timed, but [one that] has the effect of disenfranchising crores of voters, thereby robbing them of their constitutional right to vote.”
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal will represent the party in court and has requested an urgent hearing on Monday, ANI reported.
The Election Commission, in its June 24 notification, had ordered the SIR exercise in Bihar to ensure that only eligible citizens are included on the electoral rolls. It cited factors such as “rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, new young voters becoming eligible, non-reporting of deaths, and inclusion of foreign illegal immigrants.”
In its press release, the ECI added that the exercise would “scrupulously adhere to the constitutional and legal provisions.”
In the petition filed before the Supreme Court, Manoj Jha alleged that the SIR process is being “used to justify aggressive and opaque revisions of electoral rolls that disproportionately target Muslim, Dalit and poor migrant communities. As such, they are not random patterns but are engineered exclusions,” reported LiveLaw.
He also argued that “as per settled law, the burden of proving citizenship of a person lies with the State and not the person concerned.”
Citing official data, he noted that “about 4.74 crore out of 7.9 crore on the current Electoral Roll carry a disproportionately high burden of proving their citizenship with the help of proofs of date and place of birth.”
Addressing reporters on Sunday, Jha said, “SIR is such an exercise, it is being said that it will be done in entire India after Bihar. The LoP, with an all party delegation, met with the ECI the day before yesterday, but we did not get answers to any of our questions. I am happy that we went to the Supreme Court on the same issues. Why wasn't it done for 22 years? They want 11 documents, which research suggested, because it is not suggested in Article 326, Representation of People's Act."
"They want to do this exercise in 25 days, Bihar is a document deficit state. Now all in all, they are not including people but excluding them. I feel that the ECI should think about taking decisions and taking people into confidence,” he added.
According to Jha, the list of 11 documents required for proving citizenship does not include widely held documents like Aadhaar cards, MNREGA job cards, or ration cards, making the process inaccessible for large sections of Bihar’s rural and poor electorate.
Earlier, Mahua Moitra had filed her own petition challenging the ECI’s order, alleging that the revision is aimed at “disabling lakhs of voters born between July 1, 1987 and December 2, 2004 from voting.”
In a post on X, she said, “Bihar today, Bengal tomorrow. This is the EC’s game plan to help the BJP.” Trinamool chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had also described the EC’s move as a “diabolical game plan.”
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, in a post on X, claimed that “nearly eight crore people will suffer because of the exercise,” adding that “Bihar’s voters will teach the saffron party a lesson for its attack on democracy and the Constitution.”
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) has announced that it will flag the issue during a state-wide protest on July 9, called by Left-backed trade unions.
Civil society organisations, including the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), have also approached the Supreme Court.
Political activist Yogendra Yadav is among those opposing the SIR, citing concerns of mass voter exclusion, reported LiveLaw.
