Hundreds of voters, particularly Muslims and Dalits, in Bengaluru’s Shivajinagar constituency could lose their spot on the voters’ list with the Election Commision initiating action against them on the basis of a contentious complaint by activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The complaint, which the opposition has described as malicious and communally motivated, was filed in October last year and alleged that 26,000 fake voters had been identified as either shifted out or dead in the constituency. Election authorities sprang to action in January this year even as the final voters’ list was being prepared, and started issuing notices to 9,159 voters. The move is being seen as a violation of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) laid down by the Election Commission of India on September 13 2021, which said that suo-motu deletions cannot be made in the six months prior to the term of an Assembly ending. (Karnataka assembly term ends in the last week of May).
The SOP is prescribed in order to avoid last minute chaos in the lead up to voting, as such confusion could erode voters’ faith in the legitimacy of the exercise. But in the case of Shivajinagar, the ECI has sought to justify its actions by invoking a clause which said that deletions can be done under ‘special circumstances’. “How is a complaint filed by a political party, that too with enmasse names, a special circumstance?” asked MG Devasahayam, retired IAS officer and chairman of the NGO, People-First.
Shivajinagar, which is in the heart of Bengaluru, has around 1.91 lakh voters, 40% of whom are Muslims. The constituency has been represented by a Congress MLA since 2008. The controversy started with a private complaint filed by BJP sympathisers in October 2022 listing out 26,000 voters. How a private group came into possession of this list is still a mystery.
This story was originally published in thenewsminute.com . Read the full story here