Full Text | 'Something Fundamental is at Stake Here': Yogendra Yadav on Bihar SIR

Yogendra Yadav, the National Convener of the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, who has been closely and carefully monitoring and assessing the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls presently underway in Bihar, says the exercise is unconstitutional and fraudulent. In an interview with Karan Thapar, he compares it to notebandi (demonetisation) and calls it ‘votebandi’.

The full text of the interview is below, with some light edits. It has been transcribed by Joshua Kullu.

Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. Serious, if not damaging, questions are increasingly being asked about the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls that is presently underway in Bihar. Is it in fact a revision or is it an attempt to create an altogether new voters list? At this stage, does the Election Commission have the right to question the citizenship of people whom are already enrolled or seek to be enrolled? And apart from that, how efficiently and effectively is the exercise being done? Those are three of the many issues I shall raise today with someone who's taken a firm and outspoken stand on the issue. He's the national convenor of the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, Yogendra Yadav. Yogendra Yadav, let me start by trying to understand the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls that is presently underway in Bihar. In your eyes, is it really a revision of the rolls or is it an attempt to create an altogether new voters list?

Yogendra Yadav: Karan, there cannot be any doubts about it and this is not just my position. This is the Election Commission's official position that this is a rewriting of the voters list. So it's not a question of opinion. Therefore the word revision is somewhat misleading. It is, you know, the revision used to be that you go with the existing list. You delete some names, you add a few names, you make corrections. That is not what is happening today in Bihar. It is a completely fresh exercise. Election Commission reiterates that in its affidavit to the Supreme Court once again, it’s a completely new exercise, freshwater list is being prepared de novo but more than that, Karan, and that's something that everyone needs to understand.