[Marxistindia] SIR Verdict: Body Blow to Democracy

[news from the cpi(m)]

May 28, 2026

 

Press Statement

 

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:

 

SIR Verdict: Body Blow to Democracy

 

The judgement delivered by the Supreme Court upholding the Special Intensive
Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is a travesty of justice. By granting
constitutional legitimacy to a process that has led to large-scale
disenfranchisement, exclusion, and intimidation of vulnerable citizens in
various states, the apex Court has seriously compromised its expected role
as the guardian of democratic rights and constitutional guarantees.

 

The petitioners were seeking an answer to a fundamental question: can the
right to vote, the most basic instrument through which citizens participate
in democracy, be subjected to arbitrary bureaucratic suspicion and mass
documentary scrutiny. The apex court judgement has undermined the principle
of universal adult franchise as the SIR led to the deletion of the poor,
migrants, minorities, Dalits, Adivasis, landless citizens, and other
marginalised sections from the voters list as they lacked the demanded
documents. The entire SIR process lacked transparency.

 

Regrettably, the court has overlooked reports from several states of names
of legitimate voters being deleted without adequate notice, burdensome
verification procedures and the enormous barriers faced by marginalized
citizens. 

 

The introduction of the obnoxious notion of "logical discrepancy" in West
Bengal, based on untested software that relied on algorithms, more than a
crore voters were classified in the doubtful category. Eventually, 27 lakh
who were offered judicial remedy by the SC lost the right to vote. 

 

Unfortunately, the Court has endorsed a regime in which citizenship and
voting rights become contingent upon the possession of "acceptable
documents", even while people have been issued Aadhar, voter ID and accessed
welfare etc. through other forms of identification, striking at the core of
the Constitution's promise of equality.

 

Despite categorically stating that determination of citizenship, which is
under the purview of the Home Ministry, is beyond the powers of the Election
Commission, the broad endorsement of the EC's conduct of the SIR defeats
that very assertion. The court has asked the EC to submit the names of all
those deleted through the SIR process to the concerned authority for
verification of their citizenship. This move forces all of them to prove
their citizenship, which in a way leads to surreptitious introduction of the
National Registry of Citizens (NRC) against which the country protested in
unison.  

 

The Court has belied the expectation that it would look at the issue in the
light of the eroding public confidence in the neutrality and independence of
the Election Commission.

 

The recently concluded meeting of the CPI(M) Central Committee had decided
to undertake a countrywide campaign to defend the Right to Vote and
demanding comprehensive electoral reforms. The Party will seek to mobilise
like-minded parties and forces in this nationwide struggle.

 

 

Muralidharan

(For CPI(M) Central Committee Office)

 

 

 

 

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