'SIR Risks Disenfranchising Millions of Legitimate Citizens Over Lack of Documents': Lokniti-CSDS Survey
Vizag: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise by the Election Commission (EC) risks disenfranchising millions of legitimate citizens who lack a wide range of required documents, a comprehensive survey by Lokniti-CSDS has found.
The study reveals that the burden of proof would fall disproportionately on the nation's most economically vulnerable populations.
The survey, conducted across five states and Delhi, establishes a nationwide deficit in essential paperwork. A majority of respondents, 52%, do not have a birth certificate. Furthermore, 41% lack a domicile certificate and 42% do not possess a caste certificate.
The challenge is compounded for citizens born after July 1, 1987, who are required to provide parental documents.
The data exposes stark regional disparities in document possession. Government-issued birth certificates are held by only 11% of respondents in Madhya Pradesh, in sharp contrast to 44% in Delhi and 49% in West Bengal. Similarly, while 65% in Kerala have a domicile certificate, only 35% in West Bengal do.
The absence of parental documents presents a critical hurdle. In Madhya Pradesh, 87% of respondents reported their mothers lack a Secondary School Certificate (SSC). The figure for mothers' missing SSCs was also high in Uttar Pradesh (68%) and West Bengal (64%).
The lack of parents' birth certificates is also acute, with 72% of mothers in Uttar Pradesh and 70% in West Bengal reported as not having one.
Survey highlights a clear socio-economic divide
The survey highlights a clear socio-economic divide, finding that three-quarters of the citizens who have none of the required documents belong to the lower half of the economic order.
Public awareness of the SIR program is also critically low, with 47% of all respondents stating they had never heard of it. Many of those who are aware anticipate major challenges, with 46% in Delhi and 41% in Kerala describing the process of obtaining the documents as "very difficult."
Alternative forms of identification are also not universally available. Government-issued identity cards or pension orders are held by as few as 10% in Madhya Pradesh and 4% in Delhi. The Aadhaar card, while widely held, was excluded by the EC from the initial SIR exercise in Bihar, till the Supreme Court on August 14 directed the EC to include it.
The report's authors conclude that while the goal of cleaning electoral rolls is important, the current requirements could pose a "serious challenge for many of those who have a legitimate right to be part of the voters' list." The survey methodology involved a sample of 3,054 face-to-face interviews in Assam, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi.
Read The Wire’s coverage of the Bihar SIR here.
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