Political Turmoil in Bihar Over Voter List Verification Criteria

The Election Commission has declined the Supreme Court's suggestion to include Aadhaar card, ration card, and voter identity card as criteria for revising and verifying the voter list in Bihar. Following the court's directive, the Commission submitted an affidavit on July 21, stating that these three documents cannot be considered as proof of legitimate voter status because they do not confirm Indian citizenship. The Commission emphasized that the Aadhaar card is not evidence of citizenship, although it is used to create other citizen documents. Recently, the Election Commission published a list of 11 forms that can verify a voter's legitimacy, excluding the aforementioned three forms. This decision sparked political turmoil in Bihar, with opposition parties criticizing the Commission's stance. In response, several anti-BJP parties and leaders filed petitions in the Supreme Court. During the hearing, the Supreme Court suggested that the Commission could link Aadhaar card, ration card, and voter identity card with the 11 documents.

It is believed that the thorough revision of the voter list being done by the Election Commission will open the door for all fake voters to be excluded. But along with this, there are some voters for whom the door may open for exclusion from the list despite being legitimate because the Election Commission is also asking for birth certificates of new voters born between 1987 and 2003. The Election Commission had also announced that the voters whose names were in the revision list of 2003 need not worry but they will also have to fill the form issued by the Commission for revision. The Commission has said in its affidavit that it is its constitutional responsibility that the voter must be a citizen of India but his right to citizenship is not taken away due to his name not appearing in the voter list.

In India, the work of identifying citizenship is done by the Ministry of Home Affairs. This work does not come under the jurisdiction of the Election Commission. On July 10, while hearing the petitions filed by the opposition parties, the Supreme Court had said that it is not stopping the work of intensive revision of the voter list in Bihar, but is also suggesting to include Aadhar card, ration card and voter identity card. Whereas the opposition parties were demanding that the revision work be stopped immediately. The Election Commission says that as far as ration cards are concerned, the governments themselves have said that lakhs of these have been issued bogus or fraudulently. In this regard, the Commission has cited the press release issued by the Central Government on March 7, in which it has been said that lakhs of bogus ration cards are present in the country. Therefore, ration card also cannot be considered a certificate of legitimate citizenship and as far as voter identity cards are concerned, they are made according to the format issued at that time and these are part of the list issued at present, while the work of their verification is going on now. Therefore, these also cannot be considered as proof.

For the last twenty years, the work of verification or revision of voter lists has not been done in Bihar. Therefore, it is very important to do this work now. According to the Commission, the list of 11 forms that it has issued is not a big problem but is only indicative, which can provide proof of any voter being legitimate. As per the order of the Commission, all 7.8 crore voters of Bihar will have to fill a new form so that everyone can be identified. Out of these, only those voters have been asked to give one of the 11 forms whose names are added to the voter list after 2023. If seen carefully, this exercise of the Election Commission is not in vain because such complaints keep coming from different parts of the country that fake names have been kept in the voter lists and a voter also has two voter identity cards from different addresses. According to the new instructions of the Election Commission, it is now the responsibility of the citizen to prove his citizenship. According to the Election Commission, there is nothing wrong in this because as far as the citizenship of people born in India is concerned, they will have to prove that they were born in India and for this they will have to provide proof of their date and place of birth so that their name can be added to the voter list. This provision applies more to new voters who have recently turned 18 years old. Overall, the exercise of the Election Commission cannot be criticized blindly. But it is also true that the Election Commission is getting the voter list revised in Bihar in a hurry.