With Opposition's Support, Kerala Assembly Passes Unanimous Resolution Against SIR in State
New Delhi: With the support of both the incumbent state government and the Congress-led UDF opposition, the Kerala Assembly on Monday (September 29) unanimously passed a resolution against the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s decision to carry out the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters' list in the southern state.
The resolution urged the poll body to conduct the revision of voters' list in a transparent manner. As the resolution was moved in the House by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, reported Press Trust of India.
Vijayan conveyed the concerns of the House about the "hasty move" by the ECI to implement the SIR and suspected "ill-motive" behind their action.
The Chief Minister said that there are concerns that the ECI’s move to conduct SIR is a "backdoor" attempt to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC), he pointed out, adding that the recent SIR process in Bihar confirms such concerns.
Vijayan alleged that the move reflects the "politics of exclusion" and said that the SIR in Bihar witnessed "illogical exclusions" of people from the voters' list.
The resolution questioned the attempts being made to implement the SIR in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal where assembly elections are set to be held soon on the grounds that constitutional validity of the Bihar SIR process is under consideration by the Supreme Court.
There is widespread fear that the attempt by the Election Commission to implement the SIR, that requires long-term preparation and consultation, in a hasty manner is to sabotage democracy, he said.
"The local body elections in Kerala are due to be held soon. The assembly elections will be held immediately after that. In this situation, it is ill-intentioned to conduct the SIR in a hurry," said Vijayan.
While a thorough revision of the voter list was carried out in Kerala in 2002, it is "unscientific" that the SIR is to be conducted based on 2002, said Vijayan.
He also slammed the SIR's requirement that those born after 1987 can vote only if they provide their father's or mother's citizenship certificate and said that is a decision that undermines the country's adult franchise.
After amendments suggested by some members, Speaker A N Shamseer announced that the House has unanimously passed the resolution.
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