Leader of the Opposition in Assam Assembly, Debabrata Saikia, has formally requested the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to take suo motu cognisance of the alleged misuse of the ongoing special revision (SR) of electoral rolls and Form-7 in the poll-bound state, and for protection of statutory and constitutional right to vote.

The trigger for Saikia’s letter to CJI Surya Kant is the “repeated media briefings and categorical statements” made by the Assam chief minister that notices under the special revision are being deliberately served only upon a particular community, namely the Miya (Bengali-origin Muslims with roots in present-day Bangladesh) population, to “keep them under pressure”, “make them suffer”, and to demonstrate “resistance” in Assam”.

Sarma over the past few days have intensified his attack on the Miya community, publicly claiming that the government is “giving them trouble” and that such notices, eviction drives and actions by the border police “form part of a conscious and continuing” policy decision, Saikia pointed out in his representation to the CJI sent on Wednesday.

The chief minister on Wednesday claimed that ruling BJP’s members have filed over five lakh complaints against suspected foreigners as part of their “national responsibility”, hours after asserting to continue with his brand of “politics of polarisation” to “save” the Assamese people from the threat posed by illegal Bangladeshis.

Influx is an emotive issue in the state and has emerged as a key poll plank of the BJP.

The Election Commission ordered the SR in Assam in November, not the special intensive revision (SIR) currently under way in 12 states, because of issues related to the Supreme Court-monitored update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The draft roll under the SR was published on December 27, identifying around 10 lakh voters for deletion because of death or shifting. The claims and objections phase through Form 7 ended on January 22.

Flagging Sarma’s public declarations that only Miyas are being served notices, that the objective is to “make them suffer, that “four to five lakh Miya votes will be cut” and that the government is “trying to steal Miya votes”, Saikia contended that these remarks constitute an “unprecedented admission of intent to interfere with the electorate on communal lines”.

Saikia contended that such statements destroy the neutrality that must surround electoral administration and pose “a serious threat to democracy itself” and that it “amounts to an open confession that the SR exercise and the use of Form-7 are being employed… as instruments of intimidation, harassment and targeted disenfranchisement of a particular community”, directly undermining the independence of the Election Commission.

He added that such statements politicises the electoral process and violates the constitutional guarantees of equality, fraternity, secularism and non-discrimination.

“A large number of persons now being targeted for deletion are ordinary residents of Assam for decades, many since Independence, and were included in earlier electoral rolls including the 1996 revision conducted by the Election Commission itself… The present misuse of Form-7, which is meant only for genuine and limited objections, has converted a regulatory mechanism into a weapon of mass voter suppression,” Saikia, a three-term Congress MLA from Nazira constituency, said.

Citing alleged attempts to delete names of genuine voters through misuse of Form-7 (claims and objections) in his own constituency, the Congress leader said these developments — which are no longer isolated — together with the chief minister’s public admissions “show a coordinated pattern of misuse of the electoral machinery to disenfranchise citizens belonging to a particular community”.

These attempts strike at the heart of constitutional democracy, and even desecrate Article 14 (Right to Equality), 19(1)(a) (Freedom of Expression), the petition stated, while urging the apex court to take steps to check the alleged misuse that included:

 Taking suo motu cognisance of the misuse of the SR and the improper, discriminatory and malafide use of Form-7 in Assam;

 Issuing appropriate directions to the ECI to ensure that the revision process is conducted “strictly in accordance with law, without political interference, discrimination, or communal targeting”;

 Protecting the rights of “ordinarily resident” citizens under Section 20 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the statutory right to vote guaranteed under Section 62 of the Representation of People Act, 1951;

 Direction that no deletion of any elector’s name be made without proper verification, notice, hearing and a reasoned order, and that all Form-7 applications must be disposed of before publication of the final electoral roll which will be published on February 10

 Laying down safeguards so that electoral revisions cannot be converted into instruments of disenfranchisement, intimidation or political mobilisation in any state.