NEW DELHI: A delegation of the INDIA bloc led by the Congress had a meeting of over three hours with the Election Commission on Wednesday, protesting at a new rule incorporated to require the birth certificates of the voters or else they are not allowed to vote in the coming Assembly elections in Bihar in October.
It told the EC that it is putting the Bihar voters on the hunt of the birth certificates that may disenfranchise not less than two crore as the EC wants the voters’ birth certificates as also their parents’ birth certificates if they were born on or after 1987.
Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, head of he AICC human rights department who led the delegation of 18 leaders of the bloc, told reporters that so far the electoral rolls were made on the basis of the Aadhaar and ration cards but the new rule makes it difficult to the poor and the migrants working in other states to procure their birth certificates and that too in a narrow space of one month.
He said the delegation could not convince the EC that the new rule will result in disenfranchisement and disempowerment as the worst attack on the basic structure of the Constitution. He said the EC has arbitrarily picked up the electoral rolls of 2003 that is 22 years ago while all others have to produced the birth certificates of even their parents.
Nothing that the new rule could have been apply for the next Assembly elections, Singhvi said how do you expect a very-very diverse profile of Bihar’s voting population… the backwards, the flood- affected, the poor, impoverished, the SC/ST, the unempowered or even the migrants… to spend the next two months running from pillar to post to get a birth certificate of his own or father or mother. It is easy to say that volunteers will help him, but if he doesn’t get his certificate within the time limit, he loses his place on the electoral roll. We had said that upwards of two and half or three crore persons… let us assume the minimum figure of two crore people… may be disenfranchised by this exercise. Is this to be done in two months or rather in one month of July, suddenly before the election? We are not against it… it can be done with great caution, great care, great comprehensiveness and great time invested after this election, then you have five years for Bihar. Why chose this on the very cusp of the election, the delegation asked.
picture credit; SM youtube
