Picture Credit : @ECISVEEP/X
In a major announcement Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has stated that “The second phase of SIR (Special Intensive Revision) is about to be carried out in 12 States/UTs.
According to media reports, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar further said separate provisions of the Citizenship Act apply in Assam, and a special order will be issued for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the state. Assam did not figure in the list of 12 states and Union Territories where the electoral roll clean-up exercise has been announced from November 4.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Kumar said a Supreme Court-supervised exercise to verify citizenship is about to be concluded in Assam, and the state has separate provisions with regard to citizenship under the Citizenship Act.
“A special order will be issued by the Election Commission to hold SIR in Assam,” he said. Assembly elections are due in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry next year.
While SIR has been announced for the other four states, Assam has been excluded from it as of now.
“Under the Citizenship Act, there are separate provisions for citizenship in Assam. Under the supervision of the Supreme Court, the exercise of checking citizenship is about to be completed. The June 24 SIR order was for the entire country. Under such circumstances, this would not have applied to Assam,” Kumar said.
“The voter list of all those states where SIR will be done will be frozen at 12 am tonight. All voters on that list will be given Unique Enumeration Forms by the BLOs. These Enumeration Forms will have all the necessary details from the current voter list.
“After BLOs start distributing forms to exisiting electors, all those whose names are on Enumeration Forms will try to match whether their names were on 2003 voter list. If yes, they need not submit any additional documents. If not their names, but the names of their parents were on the list, then too they need not submit any additional documents. The voter list of the SIR from 2002 to 2004 will be available to be seen on http://voters.eci.gov.in by anyone and they can do the matching by themselves.”
The Election Commission has asserted there will be no hurdles in the implementation of special intensive revision of the voters’ list in West Bengal as states are constitutionally obliged to provide the poll authority with personnel to carry out the electoral roll clean-up exercise.
The remarks by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar came as the poll panel announced conducting phase two of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories between November and February.
The states and Union Territories are: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal
Responding to a question on the possibility of “bloodbath” in West Bengal if the SIR exercise is held there, Kumar said, “There is no hurdle.”
“The EC is doing its duty and state governments are constitutionally-bound to discharge their duties…..all constitutional bodies carry out their responsibility as enshrined in the constitution,” Kumar said, citing the EC’s powers under Article 324 of the Constitution.
“Maintaining law and order is a state’s constitutional responsibility… states are also bound to provide necessary personnel to EC for preparing electoral rolls and conduct of polls,” he added.
Responding to another question on the demands of postponing SIR in Kerala due to the proposed local body elections, the CEC said no notification for holding local body polls has been issued so far, and that is why the Election Commission is going ahead with holding SIR in the southern state.
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