Amid the thorough update of Bihar's voter list, opposition parties persist in their protests against the Election Commission and the government during the ongoing Sawan session of Parliament, causing a halt in parliamentary proceedings. In both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, opposition members are demanding a halt to the voter list verification in Bihar. They approached the Supreme Court on this issue, but the court declined to stop the revision process. Four days into the parliamentary session, almost no work has been accomplished in either house. The opposition acknowledges that the Election Commission is an autonomous constitutional body, deriving its authority directly from the Constitution, and no government can interfere with its operations. However, opposition leaders claim that the Election Commission is colluding with the ruling BJP party at the Center, continually devising strategies to ensure BJP's electoral victories.
This allegation cannot be accepted in the framework of the constitutional system of the country because the Election Commission is directly responsible to the voters and people of India. The right to vote given to citizens in India does not come under the category of fundamental rights but comes under the ambit of constitutional rights. The Constitution says that the Election Commission will make every Indian citizen a part of the voter list. Here the Indian citizen is very important because it differentiates between a resident of India and a legitimate citizen. Many years ago, the Center had made a policy to issue Aadhar card to be a resident of India. It is written on this Aadhar card that it is not a proof of citizenship but a proof of being a resident of India. Therefore, if the Election Commission is not accepting Aadhar card as a proof of citizenship, then technically it cannot be held wrong. Now the question is what is the status of the uproar that has arisen on this issue from the capital of Bihar, Patna to the capital of the country, Delhi? Its status is that the number of fake voters is considered to be quite high across the country. In Bihar alone, the Election Commission has found that about 50 lakh voters are fake or bogus. The names of these people will be out of the voter list because they are not fulfilling any of the 11 conditions issued by the Election Commission.
It is not that this decision of the Election Commission cannot be challenged. The work of intensive revision will end on 25th July and after this, during the entire month of August, any voter or citizen can raise the matter of a person excluded from the list before the Election Commission. He can say that the method on which a person's name has been excluded from the voter list is wrong. But he will have to prove with evidence that the person concerned is a legitimate citizen of India and hence his name should not be excluded from the voter list. The opposition parties are saying about the Maharashtra assembly elections held in the past that before the elections, names of lakhs of people were added to the voter list of this state which are fake. This matter was also raised in the Parliament by the opposition leaders of Congress. If the Election Commission takes a lesson from this and is now doing intensive revision of the voter list in Bihar, then what can be wrong in it? The opposition argues that a large number of people migrate from Bihar in search of livelihood. This is a fact which cannot be denied. For example, lakhs of Biharis migrate to the state of Punjab during the farming season. Actually, the contribution of migrant Biharis in the economy of Punjab is very important. Most of them have got their voter cards made in Punjab itself because now they are becoming permanent residents of this state. During the revision, the Election Commission found that there are lakhs of people in Bihar whose names are in the voter lists of both the states. Therefore, any voter can cast his vote at only one place. Therefore, if this fact is coming to light during the revision, then what is the need to create a hue and cry over it.
The second case is of illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims who have come from Myanmar. They too have got their names included in the voter lists by manipulating them, and the Election Commission has the full right to exclude them. If the opposition parties make a lot of noise on this issue, then they will have to look within themselves. RJD leader Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was the Chief Minister of Bihar in the past, had also given a statement against them and in 2005, he had also protested against them in the Lok Sabha. Bengal Chief Minister Ms. Mamata Banerjee had also repeated the same allegation. This at least shows that there is a problem of illegal voter cards in various states. If the Election Commission wants to try to solve this problem by conducting revision, then why should there be any objection to it. But the Election Commission will also have to keep in mind that the way it has done the work of revision of voter list in just 30 days within a month, there should not be any kind of error in it. There are a total of 7.8 crore voters in Bihar who have been verified. This verification should be done with complete thoroughness and not even a single legitimate citizen should be left out of the voter list.