New Delhi: A few months before the assembly elections, the Special Intensive Amendment (SIR) of the Election Commission has been challenged in the Supreme Court with the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the court said that the decision has been taken arbitrarily with an impractical time and it will be separated from millions with especially marginalized. It is against independent and fair elections, the organization said.The ADR, in whose arguments the SC has passed several orders to bring electoral reforms in the past, said in its petition that the need for the head for citizenship documentation affects the marginalized communities, including Muslims, SCS, STS and migrant workers, as the base and ration cards are not acceptable. Many people who did not have the required documents may not be able to buy it within a short time period fixed by EC.The petition stated, “Sir order, if not set separate, then by choosing their representatives arbitrarily and without any procedure, millions of voters can be disintegrated, making free and fair elections and democracy in the country,” stated in the petition. He said, “Directing documents requirements, lack of fixed procedure, inappropriately for the head of electoral rolls in Bihar, the exercise for the removal of the names of millions of real voters from the electoral rolls as a result of removing the practice,” said this.The EC order has “transferred the reason for citizens from the state being in the list of voters. It has excluded identification documents such as Aadhaar or Ration Card that further weakens the marginalized communities and the poor to exclude from voting”, it has been said. The petition stated, “The announcement as a required announcement under the head process is a violation of Article 326, as so far a voter needs to provide documents to prove his citizenship and also has a citizenship of his mother or father, which his name will not be added to the electoral role and can be removed from the same,” the petition is called in the petition.The timeline set by the EC for SIR stated as an inappropriate and improper and impractical, the petition stated that the millions of citizens who did not have the necessary documents may not be able to purchase documents within a short time.“Bihar is a state with high poverty and migration rate, where there is a lack of access to documents such as birth certificate or parents’ records. According to estimates, more than three crore voters and especially marginalized communities can be excluded from voting, which is mentioned in the head order, where the current reports of Bihar are mentioned.Questioning the decision of the EC allegedly made in a hurry, the petition stated that in May, the Commission listed 21 initiatives to improve the reach of voters and to streamline the poll management, but the head of the electoral rolls was not mentioned.
