In their petition before the Supreme Court, Opposition leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, have alleged “unilateral and arbitrary exercise of the collective powers of the Election Commission of India (ECI) by chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
On the deletion of 130 million names from India’s electoral rolls, the Opposition leaders asked for an effective and transparent verification mechanism. The petition also raised lingering concerns about the bulk filing of Form 7 objections, the alleged use of forged names and the targeting of specific communities and women, the denial of effective notice and hearing, and the lack of adequate enforcement against false declarations. The petition — which named the Election Commission of India, Kumar and two other election commissioners as respondents — was flagged for 14 defects, including a ₹ 220 shortfall in court fees, an illegible photocopy of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s identity card and missing vakalatnamas for nine of the 11 petitioners.
But they raised concerns whether the safeguards recognised by the Supreme Court, and the requirement that ECI act as a collective constitutional institution, have been complied with in the implementation of the exercise. One of them was that a petition filed as a public interest litigation listed the three election commissioners by name as respondents. The Opposition leaders have sought examination of the manner in which the ECINET and ERONET electoral-roll databases are designed, configured and operated.
The petition also sought a review of ECI’s key decisions to safeguard the constitutional guarantee of universal adult suffrage, alleging grave concerns “regarding the integrity of the electoral process” and “the infringement of the constitutional right of eligible citizens to be registered as voters and to exercise their right to vote. To be sure, the Opposition leaders said in the petition that they do not seek to reopen the question of the SIR’s validity. The petition said it was filed to protect “the constitutional guarantee of universal adult suffrage and ensuring that the electoral process remains free, fair, transparent and accountable” and that “The right to vote belongs to every eligible citizen irrespective of political affiliation, and its protection is a constitutional imperative that transcends party politics. the Opposition leaders said that an internal review cannot substitute an independent audit of the electoral-roll databases, the access permissions governing them, the changes made to electoral records, and the safeguards available for reversing erroneous deletions While the EC constituted an internal review panel headed by its Senior Deputy Election Commissioner.
Gandhi on Monday evening personally appeared at the Supreme Court to file the petition, joined by Kharge and nine other opposition leaders in a show of opposition unity over the SIR exercise and the alleged unilateral functioning of ECI.
