'Will send list of deleted voters to competent authority': EC welcomes SC verdict

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission shall, as directed by the Supreme Court, forward the list of electors deleted as part of the special intensive revision (SIR) across 13 states – primarily those classified as ‘others’, separate from the absent, shifted, dead, duplicate (ASDD) electors and, thus, of ‘suspect’ citizenship as well as the ones excluded from the roll based on adjudication during which they could not explain logical discrepancies in their mapping with the roll from last SIR – to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act 1955, for examining their citizenship.EC officials welcomed the judgement, saying SIR and all its processes, including seeking further clarification from electors based on logical discrepancies – mismatch with father’s name, gender mismatch, being over 45 years but never enrolled, being one of over six progeny of the same parent, less than 15 years or over 50 years age gap with mapped parent and less than 40 years gap with mapped grandparent – and deleting ones who failed to explain the discrepancies, have been validated by SC. Those challenging SIR had earlier called these logical discrepancies an exercise in disenfranchisement.“The EC was, is and will always be with the voters,” said chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.As per EC data for a dozen states covered in the second round of SIR, nearly 6.5 crore ASDD electors were deleted. Over 12.7 lakh were excluded from the roll and classified as ‘others’, which sources said are essentially “suspect illegal immigrants”. Another 63.2 lakh were deleted through Form 7 and adjudication; these include over 27 lakh dropped from the Bengal roll after their appeals were rejected by officers.The SC direction to EC to hand over the ‘suspect’ citizen cases to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act was already there in the SIR order. The order had instructed the electoral registration officer (ERO) and assistant ERO to “forward cases of suspected foreign nationals to the ‘competent authority’ under the Citizenship Act, 1955”. Sources said the competent authority is the foreigners registration office (FRO) or foreigners regional registration office (FRRO), and the ERO/SDM may forward the ‘suspect’ cases to them for verification. In case the citizenship is verified, the FRO/FRRO may refer back the case to EC authorities who will then add the person to the roll. Else, the FRO/FRRO may order the suspect to be sent to a detention or holding centre.