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New Delhi: In a statement released on Wednesday, October 28, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for the scrapping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that the exercise had led to the “arbitrary” and “deeply flawed” exclusion of over 130 million names, disproportionately impacting women, Muslims and marginalised communities.

Commenting on the ongoing agitation against the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, the Asia director at HRW, Elaine Pearson, said, “Indian authorities first stripped millions of citizens of their right to vote and are now beating and jailing them for peacefully protesting these rights violations.”

“The authorities should immediately scrap the voter roll revision process that has denied India’s most marginalised people their right to vote and other government services,” Pearson added.

HRW said the revision exercise rolled out by the Election Commission of India (ECI), ideally meant to identify dead and duplicated voters and update the voter lists, relied on unclear eligibility criteria and “opaque” verification systems that left millions of eligible voters vulnerable to the threat of deletion.

Also read: The Election Commission Filed 16 Lakh Appeals Against Included Bengal Voters Over Just 3 Days as the Rolls Froze

The organisation interviewed 70 people from across Delhi, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka, 40 of whom had been personally affected by the SIR. Interviewees also included former election commissioners, activists, lawyers and a current electoral official.

Arbitrary use of ‘logical discrepancies’ category

HRW argued that the categorisation of “logical discrepancies” was weaponised to flag voters for........

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