Present case in Maharashtra where voter's name were deleted is not as genuine as it is being made out to be. This shows mistrust on citizens and totally absolves the district election officer or election registrations officers who have acted irresponsibly. This should call for citizen outrage through use of RTI

It’s distressing that the unprecedented mass deletions in the voters’ lists of Mumbai and Pune  have had no bearing on the alleged accused – that is, Election Registration Officers (EROs), District Election Officers or the Election Observers of Mumbai and Pune, in terms of accountability or instituting of an investigation or inquiry against any of them, into this alleged scandal, systems failure and mal-administration.

Instead, the onus has been put on the 'victim', in this case the voter whose name has been deleted, although in many cases, the name may have been deleted without the EROs following necessary legal norms or the deletion process.  While the Bombay High Court placed the onus on citizens to get themselves again on the voters’ list if their names have been deleted and former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dr SY Quarishi, speaking at  Moneylife Foundation, made a generalised statement that 'deletion is a part of the cleaning process' without addressing the present case.

It is a blow to democracy wherein the 'victim' now has to gulp down the humiliation of being ousted from the electoral process, in many cases, for no fault of his/ her and once again go and register as a voter by filling Form 6. The only crumbs thrown at the 'victim' by the High Court is that his or her name would be entered into the voters’ list in 30 days time, after he or she registers once again. The question is, should we be thankful to this 'considerate time period'? Yes, but with a rider!

Before that, let us read extracts from the Bombay HC Order and Dr SY Quraishi’s lecture:

Excerpts from Bombay HC order of May 12, 2014:

“(C) The statement made by the learned Advocate General that the revision of electoral rolls for Pune and Mumbai Constituencies shall be undertaken at the earliest and in pursuance thereof individual applications in the prescribed forms for inclusion in the electoral rolls shall be considered and disposed of in accordance with law, preferably within 30 days from the date of their receipt, is accepted. The concerned Respondents shall publish notices / advertisements in the newspapers indicated in paragraph 56 of this order, so that there is adequate publicity with regard to such revision of electoral rolls. This shall be in addition to other usual modes of publication of notice. It is made clear that such revision shall have no nexus with the on going Lok Sabha Elections 2014.”

Excerpt from Dr SY Quraishi’s talk at Moneylife Foundation on May 9, 2012: “Everywhere we are hearing the word 'deletion'. Is it a bad word? I don't think so. If people are dead, shouldn't we delete their names? If they have shifted somewhere should we not delete them? If they have been registered at two places, should we not delete their names?

Deletion is a part of cleaning the electoral rolls, and very important because, if out of the 60 lakh voters, about 59 lakh are bogus, then it deserved to be deleted. There is potential of misusing bogus voters there. You are new to politics, but all the political parties know who dead people in these electoral rolls are and again, they have fake voters ready.

``In Uttar Pradesh, when we did elections in 2008, we found 53 lakh dead voters. They were all potential bogus voters, so we deleted them. There were 83,000 voters, who had shifted residences, but we could not delete them because they may choose to come back. Then we have two categories, families shifted with bag and baggage with no contact left and some members moving out leaving other members still at the address.

So we created a separate list, and instructed the presiding officer that if anybody comes from these separate 'missing' list, then he must scrutinize the voter very carefully. And, you will be surprised to know that only 1.5% people from this separate 'missing' list actually came for voting.

At that time, the EC deleted 1.32 crore voters as routine cleaning process. The concerned chief minister at that time, said he lost the elections not to rivals but to Election Commission. This was because, we did not allow any bogus voters. The matter is in courts now.

According to my impression, only 0.5% from the total were not genuine deletion and 99.5% was genuine deletions. Therefore, deletion is a part of cleaning process.”

Is Maharashtra the same story as Uttar Pradesh? Can the former CEC make a sweeping statement? Should a voter, who had voted as recently as the Municipal Elections in 2012, be the 'accused' even if he has not checked his name this time, as he has not been served any notice at his door by the Election Office nor has he himself filled Form 8, requesting deletion?

Former Divisional Commissioner of Pune, Prabhakar Karandikar had written a letter to Chief Election Officer appealing for suo motu cancellation of ERO’s deletion orders and putting back all those names in the voters’ list.

He had stated: “From the newspapers, it appears that the officials of Election Commission of India (ECI) have suggested that all voters, whose names appear to have been deleted wrongfully / inadvertently, should apply to the concerned ERO for inclusion of in Form 6 under the provisions of Rule 13(a) of RER 1960.

However, I would like to submit that the following categories of cases deserve to be dealt with on a special footing:-

            [1] Persons who have been regularly voting regularly in the past but suddenly find             their names deleted this time round;

            [2] Names of a few members of the family residing at the same address have been           deleted, while keeping names of remaining members intact.

It would appear that these type of mistakes have taken place due to administrative lapses on the part of the EROs. It would be adding insult to injury to ask such voters to apply afresh for inclusion of their names in Form 6 or to ask them to file appeals under the provisions of Rule 23 of RER 1960.
 

I would like to suggest that all the written complaints regarding deletion of names received by DEOs / EROs may be deemed to be Appeals filed under the provisions of Rule 23 of the RER 1960 against the orders of deletion (of names) passed by the EROs and taken up for suo motu review by the EROs / DEOs, waiving the issue of limitation. This would create an impression in the minds of the offended voters as well in the minds of the general public that ECI is sympathetic towards redressal of their grievances.

However, arguments to defend the 'missing voter' in the list are finally turning out to be futile. So, what are the options left? Fill up Form 6 once again and get into the voters’ list. I can imagine how dejected one may feel about doing that if he or she is not in the wrong, but the citizen has been left with no option.

However, along with doing whatever it takes to get yourself in the voters’ list, the writer urges every applicant to use Right to Information (RTI) to investigate into why and how your name was deleted from the list, although you had voted in 2012, checked your names, never submitted Form 8 requesting your name deletion or you were not served notice by the ERO for deletion.

1. For RTI application under Section 6 of the RTI Act as well as for Section 4 inspection of files, you should ask for information on (download the forms from the box below this article):

1. Page of the voter roll list which had my name/names earlier and page of the voter roll list in which my name has been deleted
2. Copy of the notice sent to me before deletion of my name/names
3. Copy of the hearing sent to me as a result of the notice
4. Copy of the public notice issued in the newspaper announcing my name/names for deletion
5. All correspondence related to the procedure that led to the deletion of my name

Alternatively, the citizen can write the following complaint letter to the District Election Officer/ State Election Commissioner, Maharashtra
 

            Please treat this as an official complaint from a voter who was denied her right to    vote in Pune on the 17th of April. Please let me know the reason why my name was    deleted from the voters’ list with documentary evidence. Please let me know what           action you have taken against the officers/staff who have wrongly deleted my name.    Please ensure my name is put back in the voters’ list and send me the details.

Name/address:

Voting card no: (if you have otherwise ignore)

Contact no:

Voting booth: (if you know)

Assembly Constituency:

Reason for Complaint:

Date:

Signature

It is not possible for each one of us to steer or take part in large scale citizen campaigns to fight this injustice. Hence, if each of the affected person seeks explanation from the Election office, it would help build up citizen pressure on the authorities. So, come on, do not take injustice lying down. Use RTI and give us the feedback.
 

Application for filing application for file inspection under Section 4 of RTI Act