Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: In an urgent missive to Election Commission, Congress on Thursday accused the ruling BJP of using the EC’s Form 7 to target genuine voters for wrongful deletion in the Claim and Objection phase of the SIR in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam and Kerala.AICC general secretary and MP KC Venugopal, in a complaint to EC, termed the watchdog’s inaction in addressing concerns about systematic subversion of electoral rolls revision as worrisome and urged immediate steps to prevent BJP from misusing the electoral rolls to gain unfair electoral advantage.“These actions, if not taken cognizance of by the Commission, … will lead to the disenfranchisement of lakhs of voters, especially those belonging to the backward, marginalised communities,” he said, adding that backward communities are being targeted by BJP.Venugopal said Form 7 serves a narrow purpose of raising objection to a voter’s name with fact-based reasons like death or duplication, and “is not meant for generalised or speculative objections”. He said the burden of proof too rests on the person filing the Form, with penalties prescribed for making a false submission.Specifying the pattern involved in engineering wrongful deletion, Venugopal said Form 7 is being generated in bulk through a centralised system, which is then being used to raise objections in bulk against targetted categories of electors, including SCs, STs, the minorities and senior citizens. He said these forms are then being handed over to BLOs across multiple constituencies through a well-organised mechanism. The striking feature here is the absence of clear and verifiable particulars of the individual submitting the Form 7, though EC mandates disclosure of an objector’s identity along with documentary material substantiating the objection. He said in many instances, the alleged objectors denied filing the objections.“This casts serious doubts over the sanctity of the entire SIR process being undertaken,” he said.Congress urged EC to institute real-time supervision over the voter deletion process and the monitoring of Form 7 applications, including their issuance and submission. It also sought investigation under Article 324 into misuse of Form 7. Congress further urged EC to release disaggregated data relating to Form-7 applications for all 12 States undergoing SIR.
