Nationwide protests have broken out in India this week seeking the removal of the country’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) over allegations of irregularities in the electoral process during various state elections and the deliberate mass disenfranchisement in favor of the ultra-right-wing ruling dispensation.

On Wednesday, September 30, thousands came out on the streets in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad in a joint demonstration called by the Left parties, the regional Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and others, to defend voting rights.

On Tuesday, a protest was held in New Delhi led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary M A Baby . The protesters, who were marching to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters, were detained by the security forces for hours in an attempt to disrupt the march.

Similar protests have been held in different parts of the country by various other groups and political formations, including the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), the civil society groups, student and youth organizations, and the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP).

The CJP, which successfully led a protest by students and youth in the country earlier this year against the union government’s education policies, has called for another national mobilization over the issue beginning on October 2.

The protesters have listed three major demands:

• halting the so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls
• the re-inclusion of all the voters removed so far from the electoral rolls
• the removal of the CEC Mr. Gyanesh Kumar

Protestors say these demands are essential to protect the fundamental right to vote, currently at risk by the Chief Election Commissioner.

Read more: India’s Cockroach Rebellion and what comes next

Over 130 million removed from the electoral rolls

India does not have a centralized electoral roll. They are prepared at the local constituency levels. The CEC in the country has been accused of changing this by arbitrarily changing rules and initiating processes. The opposition alleges these actions were taken in order to have control over the electoral outcome.

According to the data compiled by various reports, over 130 million voters have been deleted from the electoral rolls of different states in India, citing various reasons since the so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) began last year.

Reports indicate that in several state legislative constituencies, the number of voters deleted from the electoral rolls were more than the victory margins during the elections.

Despite its large electoral base, in India’s First Past the Poll system, margins of victory in state legislative constituencies are often very small, ranging from a few to a few thousand votes.

It has also been reported that because of the SIR, in some smaller states between one third to half of all voters have been deleted or put into doubtful lists by the ECI. In bigger states such as Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, millions of people have been excluded.

In most of these cases, those removed from the electoral list have either already missed their opportunity to vote or expected to miss it given the slow process of appeals for re-inclusion.

For example, in West Bengal, elections were held earlier this year with millions of citizens failing to exercise their right to vote while waiting for the re-inclusion of their names in the electoral list.

The majority of those who failed to reapply and get their names back into the electoral rolls in time are from economically marginalized sections or from the Muslim-minority communities.

The ECI has also been accused of deliberately suppressing crucial information from the public and delaying the proceedings.

A deliberate move to benefit the ruling party

The opposition has been accusing that these deletions and the slow process of appeals are deliberate moves adopted by the ECI in complete violation of the country’s legal and constitutional provisions. The process disregards citizens’ fundamental right to vote, the opposition claims.

Opposition parties, civil society groups, and others have been protesting against the process since the beginning while claiming that the process was invented to manipulate the elections in favor of the ruling ultra-right-wing and Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Civil society groups and some political parties also filed a petition in the country’s Supreme Court last year challenging the SIR. However, the process has continued as the court has repeatedly refused to stay it.

The top court’s refusal to stay the SIR despite acknowledging irregularities and violations in its execution from time to time has enraged the opposition parties and civil society activists.

The current upsurge was a result of a report published in the Indian Express, one of India’s leading English daily papers on September 23. The report, citing official documents, exposed that the CEC Mr. Kumar bypassed the majority objections and made unilateral decisions related to the SIR on at least 14 occasions.

There are two more commissioners apart from the CEC in the ECI all appointed by the union government. The laws clearly state that all decisions in the ECI must be taken either by a consensus or by a majority.

Mr. Kumar’s unilateral decisions related to the SIR process, including the rules regarding voter enrollment, the deletion or inclusion of names in the electoral rolls, among others, have unfairly benefited the ruling party, including in West Bengal, which amounts to stealing the elections, the opposition alleges.

The BJP came to power in West Bengal, one of India’s largest provinces, for the first time earlier this year amidst allegations of the deliberate exclusion of millions of voters from the electoral rolls.

On Tuesday, the INC issued a statement calling for more protests across the nation and reiterating the demands for Mr. Kumar’s removal, apart from the immediate halt of the SIR and the re-inclusion of all the voters wrongfully deleted from the electoral rolls.

Second freedom struggle

The INC has alleged that the irregularities in the electoral process are nothing less than “a theft of votes and democracy” done by the ECI under the leadership of Mr. Kumar on behalf of the ruling BJP and the movement will not stop until he is removed from his post and tried for his criminal actions.

It also claimed that the movement for the restoration of the right of all adult citizens to vote is no less than a second “freedom struggle,” invoking India’s anti-colonial movement against the British in the early twentieth century.

All the left parties, led by the CPI (M), also issued a joint statement last week seeking the removal of Mr. Kumar, and the withdrawal of the SIR process, claiming the allegations against him raise serious questions regarding the constitutional protection of the right to vote and elect representatives.

The SIR, under Mr. Kumar’s leadership in the ECI, has created doubts about the fairness and integrity of the electoral process in India, the Left parties said, claiming it needs to be urgently corrected.

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