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New Delhi: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), meant to be an exercise to “purify” electoral rolls of absent, shifted, deceased and duplicate voters, is now moving to serve as a unit to determine welfare beneficiaries under the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) state governments in West Bengal and Bihar. The move, even as questions on the legality of the SIR are pending in the Supreme Court, has raised questions on whether electoral rolls can serve as a determinant of citizenship, and whether they can be used to deny welfare benefits. 

“Voter lists are for the limited purpose of voting. If the sweep of the list is extended beyond that, it can result in chaos. The eligibility criterion for inclusion in a voter list is different from eligibility for welfare benefits. If the extension is permitted, exclusion can then be extended to issuance of a driving licence, opening a bank account and so on. It could even extend to employment. There would be no end to this absurd situation,” said Justice Madan B. Lokur, former judge in the Supreme Court.

Yet in the two states where the BJP has installed its chief ministers for the first time, the new governments are proceeding to use these very voter lists as a unit of determination of welfare beneficiaries.

Days after forming the government in West Bengal, the BJP’s first chief minister in the state Suvendu Adhikari, in his first cabinet meeting, moved to reorder beneficiaries of welfare schemes. While saying that schemes from the previous Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government would continue, those excluded during the SIR will be left out.

On May 19, the West Bengal government issued a notification for the Annapurna Yojana scheme, which has replaced the former TMC government’s flagship scheme for cash transfer to women known as Lakshmir Bhandar. The notification stated that while women would receive Rs 3,000 instead of the earlier Rs 1,500 through direct benefit transfer, those who have been struck off the rolls in the SIR exercise, will not remain beneficiaries, while those who have applied under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and are awaiting tribunal adjudication of their deletions from the voter rolls will be eligible.

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In neighbouring Bihar, the BJP’s first chief minister in the state, Samrat Choudhary, too has announced that those excluded in the SIR will not be entitled to any government benefits “including ration” and bank passbooks too will be cancelled in “due course of time”, though an official notification is yet to be issued.

Following the contentious electoral revision exercise in West Bengal, the electorate had nearly 89 lakh fewer voters than before the process, while Bihar now has nearly 47 lakh fewer voters. 

In both states, the BJP led aggressive poll campaigns driven around the SIR, to weed out alleged illegal immigrants. The Election Commission of India however, is yet to provide a figure of how many foreigners were found on the rolls following the electoral roll revision. 

‘Worst fear coming........

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