- 1 hour ago
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Election Commission of India's power to conduct Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as "legally tenable", ruling that the exercise advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections.
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00:00So is the Supreme Court order an SIR, a setback to the opposition's vote-chory charge against the Modi government?
00:06Has the Supreme Court failed to address concerns over genuine citizens losing out on their voting rights?
00:12Was the SIR done in haste and without transparency?
00:16Or has the SIR ensured free and fair elections or bent the rules to favor the BJP?
00:22Joining me now, Dr. S.Y. Qureshi, former Chief Election Commissioner, Yogendra Yadam,
00:27one of the petitioners in the court and co-founder Swaraj India.
00:30And J.B.L. Narsimarao, former Rajas Abha MP and senior leader BJP.
00:34Appreciate your joining us. Let me come to you, Dr. Qureshi, first.
00:37Do you believe that the Supreme Court order vindicates the election commission
00:42who says the SIR was necessary to clean up the electoral rolls, had nothing to do with politics?
00:49Well, the Supreme Court order partially does that.
00:52It declares that election commission has the power under the constitution and the law
00:58to purify the electoral roll following a procedure which itself adopts.
01:05Absolutely no quarrel with that.
01:06But I would like to say that for the last so many years, 30 years, 40 years,
01:11election commissioners have been doing exactly that.
01:15And after 30 years of effort, after digitizing it first, and every year through summary revision process,
01:24we have achieved 99% accuracy.
01:27And 1% impurity is thought to be removed every year by door-to-door visit for summary revision.
01:36Now, the electoral roll, which was very pure in June 2024, which brought in the government of India in 2024,
01:47became junk and rubbish in 2025.
01:52Now, that itself is very illogical.
01:54Now, need for purity of electoral process, which the Supreme Court has also highlighted,
02:00absolutely there is no quarrel with that.
02:02But that is, will the election commission guarantee that now the electoral roll is pure
02:09and there is no illegal deletion and there is no illegal inclusion?
02:15Has the Supreme Court asked the election commission to certify this?
02:19And I feel that the purity, which was 99% a year and a half ago, it must be now
02:2570%.
02:27You know, so you're saying that, that was, you're effectively questioning the necessity for the SIR
02:34in the manner and the timing of it.
02:36You're saying in 2024, if the electoral rolls were pure,
02:41what prompted the election commission a year later to suddenly go for an SIR ahead of Bihar and Bengal elections?
02:47Am I correct?
02:48Yes, absolutely.
02:49Absolutely.
02:51They were fined until January 2025.
02:54And suddenly in two, three months, they become junk.
02:57And secondly, to call it revision itself is a misnomer.
03:01You revise something which exists.
03:03The existing roll has been thrown into the dustbin.
03:07And if any issue, from scratch, new names are being collected.
03:10Now, collecting all the names, putting them together and coming out with an electoral roll is a very time-consuming
03:17and complex exercise,
03:18which is why I say that it had taken 30 years to reach this level of perfection.
03:23And they would do it in three months or 30 days.
03:26But we had an SIR with due regard, Dr. Qureshi, in 2003.
03:30We did have an SIR.
03:31It's not as if you don't have, you've not had these special intensive revisions in the past.
03:36No, I didn't say that at all.
03:38In fact, taking up from what you're saying, that in 2003, after the intensive revision, the then-election commission decided
03:48that time has come that we will not require intensive revision
03:52because we have already digitized our electoral rolls.
03:56They need to be updated every year because there will be some death, there will be some migration, there will
04:01be some people becoming 18 and becoming new voters.
04:04Because therefore, we will, hence for now onwards, we will only do summary revision, which also exactly, basically, is the
04:13same process.
04:14The BLO goes door to door.
04:16It will come to, the BLO will come to your house, Rajdeep, this is your electoral roll.
04:21These are the five names in your house.
04:23Is that correct?
04:24If you say it is correct, they move on.
04:27Otherwise, if you say, you know, you want some green, they will give you a form 6, 7 or 8
04:33for addition, deletion or correction.
04:35And only thing is, Rajdeep, the important thing is that the whole exercise was started in the name of finding
04:41illegal voters, illegal immigrants.
04:44How many illegal immigrants were found in Bihar?
04:48Till today, we do not know.
04:50Everybody is talking of transparency.
04:52Do you know the number?
04:53Remember, we don't, only I read it in the media that in Bihar, after making 8 crore people run around,
05:00500 foreigners were found.
05:02Of which 150 were Bangladeshis and 350 were Nepali Hindu women who had come by marriage.
05:08For this, to achieve that purpose, you went through this whimsical exercise.
05:16Okay, you're, you know, you're therefore questioning the manner, the timing of the exercise.
05:21You want to respond, J.V.L. Narsimara, on a day when the constitutionality has been affirmed by the Supreme
05:27Court, there are still questions being raised.
05:30Logical discrepancies, a criteria was put out in Begol, which led to 27 lakh voters losing their voting rights.
05:38In Bihar, the argument was made, infiltrators were weeded out, but we don't know how many infiltrators were actually weeded
05:46out.
05:47Was this exercise done purely for Bihar and Bengal to give an advantage to the ruling parties, what the opposition
05:54has alleged?
05:54Dr. Qureshi is saying, you already had an electoral roll which served the purpose in 2024.
06:00Was there a need to conduct the exercise in such haste without transparency?
06:06No, I think there was no haste and there was complete transparency.
06:10I contradict that.
06:11And I'm little, I would say I'm surprised and also a little disappointed that our former chief election commissioner is
06:21finding fault with the electoral cleaning process,
06:25which has also been upheld by the Supreme Court of India after detailed hearings.
06:30It was not a, it's an order that was delivered by the court.
06:34It's nobody's case on what is the basis for him to say 99% accuracy of the rolls in 2024.
06:41There were definitely duplications in that.
06:44In fact, several Congress leaders, BJP leaders, not by any design, just because of inefficiencies in the system.
06:52Several people had their votes.
06:53I can name any number of people who have two votes, one in their home constituency and one in place
07:01of work.
07:02And despite, in fact, effort on the part of the voters to get their votes removed or transferred, I think
07:09duplication continued to happen.
07:14We've seen during the elections how it's pure inefficiency.
07:17No, no, but should it have been done with great, not in such haste?
07:22Because when you do it in such haste, that's the point the Supreme Court does not seem to have registered.
07:27No, no, no, I think you're doing, this process has been ongoing.
07:30It has happened over a four-month period in Bengal.
07:34How many months do you require when the whole machinery of the state government and the entire political machinery of
07:40the political parties is involved in the entire exercise?
07:44Tamil Nadu is not a BJP-ruled state.
07:46It's not ruled even now.
07:47Not a murmur of complaint by any political party.
07:51Uttar Pradesh is ruled by the BJP.
07:54Two crore voters have been, I think they have been found to be not existing or either removed or either
08:03migrated.
08:04It's not a question of favoring any political party, but the foundation of your clean elections requires clean electoral rolls.
08:15Let me read some observations.
08:16And this is what the Election Commission of India has stated as the purpose.
08:21It's not just for removal of illegal immigrants.
08:24It stated frequent migration.
08:26That's a major cause of voters moving from one place to the other and the voters and their remaining as
08:34registered voters at multiple places, resulting in voters getting registered at more than one place.
08:40This is a very major, major, major problem.
08:43A number of people who migrate to Delhi continue to have votes in Bihar or continue to have their votes
08:48in Uttar Pradesh or wherever they came from.
08:50Non-removal of dead voters.
08:53Several lakh dead voters were found in Bihar.
08:56All of them did not die after 24 May.
09:00They died.
09:00Certainly, the procedures adopted earlier did not possibly do this job as diligently as it was done as a part
09:11of the special intensive revision.
09:14You see this as a cleanup.
09:16You see this as a cleanup of the rolls which was necessary.
09:20And therefore, it is wrong, you believe, to attach a political motive to it.
09:24That's your sum and...
09:25And have some faith in the highest judiciary.
09:29You can...
09:30Political parties can indulge in much slinging.
09:33But at least neutral people, at least so-called neutral people, must have some respect for the wisdom of the
09:39judiciary.
09:40You can continue to have your point of view.
09:42But saying this is a BJP will decide who will be a voter, who will not be.
09:47A point I am referring to Dr. Yogan Rayadav apparently made today.
09:50It is BJP doesn't decide.
09:53We are not in power in all the states.
09:55So, West Bengal, we were not in power.
09:58So, are you saying that TMC had the power to decide who would be in the list, who would not
10:02be in the list?
10:03I think it's a little unfair.
10:05And I hope people of our maturity should refrain from making such political overtone comments.
10:14Okay, let me bring in Yogan Rayadav on that point.
10:17Because you are a petitioner in the case.
10:19Do you accept with all humility what the court has said?
10:22Because you've almost suggested that you've lost faith in the Supreme Court after this verdict.
10:28Do you want to expand on that and explain why you've lost faith?
10:31At the end of the day, the Supreme Court is the apex court of this country.
10:36Rajdeep, I said nothing of that kind.
10:39I have simply analyzed the consequences of the court's judgment and the rationale deployed by the court,
10:46both of which it is my constitutional right and duty to do.
10:50The question never was whether voter list should be revised or not.
10:55The question was whether the very special, very controversial and unprecedented method used for that,
11:04which involved shifting the onus of voters, which involved overturning the presumption of citizenship,
11:11and which involved producing new set of documents and producing your family history,
11:17was that legal or constitutional or not?
11:20And let's be absolutely clear about what the Supreme Court has said today.
11:28Supreme Court of India has put its stamp of approval on the biggest disenfranchisement ever in the history of any
11:38country,
11:38not just India.
11:40Six crore voters have been deleted, those who were on the voters list.
11:45Six crore names have already been deleted.
11:48By the time the exercise comes to an end, my estimate is it will be more like 9.5 crores
11:55or about 10 crores of it.
11:57But many of them could be duplicate voters, many of them could be dead voters,
12:01many of them therefore had to be removed from the rolls.
12:06Indeed, Rajdeep, about 2 to 3% of them are dead voters, according to Election Commission's own statistics.
12:12The most important thing to remember here, Rajdeep, is that when six crore names are removed,
12:21we have actual, not just estimate, we have figures from government of India about what the adult population in these
12:28states was.
12:29So when Dr. Qureshi refers to 99%, he's not referring to 99% accuracy,
12:35he's referring to 99% completeness of the electoral rolls,
12:39which is to say, compared to adult population, our electoral rolls were 99%.
12:46Today, that has dropped to less than 90%.
12:51Nearly 9% drop in one single year has never been witnessed.
12:57So the argument that they were all dead, absent, needed to be deleted,
13:01and the voters list was inflated, is refuted by the government of India's own statistics.
13:07The piece that I had the honor to present to the Supreme Court personally,
13:10there is no comment in the judgment on that.
13:12But forget about that, Rajdeep, the importance of what has been done today is in the context.
13:19In the course of the hearing, Justice Surya Kanta, I think, had said,
13:24we don't operate in vacuum.
13:26We keep our eyes open.
13:30Similarly, we must look at what the Supreme Court has ordered today,
13:33not in vacuum, keeping our eyes open.
13:36We live, Rajdeep, in a context where BJP's dominance over the stranglehold over electoral politics
13:43is near complete.
13:46We live in a system where BJP is trying to check the architecture of India's electoral system.
13:52It's Desh, Karl and Patra, all three of them,
13:56to deliver a permanent majority for the BJP.
13:59And we live in assist times when election commission's own legitimacy is going for a nosedive.
14:07In that context, the Supreme Court of India today
14:11has granted virtually a blank check to the election commission.
14:16Supreme Court has legalized disenfranchising.
14:19Not just that. It's not just about behalf.
14:21You were talking about logical discrepancy.
14:24Rajdeep, the principles outlined in this judgment,
14:27which I have read carefully, 124 pages of it,
14:30now leaves no doubt that no such question about Bengal can be raised.
14:34Not just that, Rajdeep.
14:36If these principles are to be affirmed,
14:38and they have to be because this is the judgment of the Supreme Court,
14:42for the next few years,
14:44no matter what the election commission does with the voters list,
14:48will be accepted.
14:49As they used to say,
14:50na khata na bahi,
14:52jo election commission kahe wo sahi.
14:54And therefore, I say, Rajdeep,
14:56that this is the ADM-Jabalpur moment of our times.
15:00Just a context.
15:00Well, let me remind, you know,
15:01I read you say this is the ADM-Jabalpur moment of the times.
15:05To our viewers,
15:06ADM-Jabalpur was the judgment whereby a 4-1,
15:10the Supreme Court had effectively said
15:12suspension of your fundamental rights was possible
15:15in certain circumstances.
15:17And in this case,
15:18constitutional right,
15:19the right to vote,
15:20many believe,
15:21has been circumscribed.
15:23GVL,
15:24you are raising your hand.
15:24You want to respond to what you did.
15:26Can I just say one thing to GVL,
15:27to my friend GVL,
15:29when he says,
15:30why do you question the Supreme Court of India?
15:33My humble submission, sir,
15:35is,
15:35why did you question
15:36the ADM-Jabalpur judgment?
15:39Why is it that Vajpayee ji,
15:41Advani ji,
15:42Arun Jaitali ji,
15:43all used to say ADR-Jabalpur
15:46is a plot on the history of Indian judiciary?
15:49We said that,
15:50why can't we say that today,
15:51if that is what is happening today?
15:53Yeah, go ahead, GVL.
15:54I was not objecting to that,
15:57but your comment,
15:59Yogiendra,
16:00that BJP will decide
16:01who will be on the voters list
16:04and who will not be.
16:05I don't know.
16:05If you have made that comment in,
16:10whether you made that as a serious comment
16:12or it was a comment of flippancy,
16:15I don't know.
16:16But if it's a serious comment,
16:17I think it really warrants an explanation
16:19because it's not the BJP that decides.
16:23It was when Mr. Qureshi was
16:24the chief election commissioner,
16:26decisions were made by him.
16:28It was not done by the Congress party.
16:31We never realized that.
16:32So therefore,
16:33it's very unfair to say
16:34that the BJP will decide
16:36if BLOs of all political parties
16:40are involved in this exercise,
16:41officials of the respective state governments
16:44are involved,
16:44whoever is in power.
16:45We were not in power in Kerala.
16:47We were not in power in Tamil Nadu.
16:51And the same exercise that was carried out
16:53did not,
16:55and Kerala had a substantial minority population.
16:59No questions were raised there.
17:01So West Bengal,
17:02the questions were raised
17:03more as a political,
17:05some kind of a political issue
17:08and a political bogey
17:10to discredit the BJP,
17:12to prevent,
17:13to tar a BJP's potential victory,
17:17to paint it as some kind of a concoction.
17:19I think it was a political motive.
17:21That is my allegation.
17:22How does BJP decide in Kerala
17:25or West Bengal
17:26or Tamil Nadu
17:26who would be on the list
17:28and who would not be on the list?
17:30Because West Bengal
17:31had a unique category.
17:32Mr. GVL Narsimara,
17:34you'll know that West Bengal
17:35had a unique category
17:36created through an algorithm
17:37called logical discrepancies,
17:39under which 27 lakh people
17:41were taken off the rolls.
17:43And so far,
17:44when they've gone and appealed
17:45to the tribunals,
17:46most of them have been found
17:47to be genuine citizens.
17:48My point is,
17:49do you believe, therefore,
17:50that the EC needs to do
17:52any introspection or not?
17:53Or you believe
17:54this is pure politics?
17:56No.
17:57I, as a responsible citizen,
18:00I certainly expect
18:01the Election Commission of India
18:03to be extremely conscious
18:05of its responsibilities
18:07and carry out these duties
18:09very diligently
18:10and not get carried away
18:13by any political comments,
18:15either from the BJP
18:16or from the opposition
18:17and do its duty
18:18as the constitution mandates.
18:20And certainly,
18:21I expect accountability
18:22from every institution,
18:24including the Election Commission
18:25of India.
18:26And questions raised
18:28about the process
18:29in Bihar or in Bengal
18:31will certainly,
18:32I think,
18:32will put greater honours
18:34on these institutions
18:35and their oversight
18:37over the administration
18:39in different states.
18:41Quick response,
18:42Yogendra Yadav.
18:43Do you believe
18:43at the end of the day
18:44that the Election Commission
18:45now will say
18:47that, look,
18:48the court itself
18:50has said
18:50that all the cases
18:52which are disputed
18:53have to be heard expeditiously?
18:54That's what the court
18:55is saying.
18:56That those which are disputed
18:57have to be heard expeditiously.
19:01First respond to JBL Garu
19:03who had indeed
19:03asked this question
19:04and I did not answer.
19:05I'm sorry about this.
19:07Yes, I have actually said
19:09that the consequence
19:11of the court's judgment today,
19:13I do not attribute
19:14any political motive
19:15to the court.
19:16Consequence of the judgment
19:18of the court today
19:19is that ECI
19:21gets absolutely unchecked,
19:24untremeled,
19:25unaccounted power
19:26for changing voters' list.
19:29Unfortunately,
19:29because the Supreme Court
19:32is unable to take
19:33any decision
19:33about how the Election Commission
19:36is being appointed,
19:37it virtually gives
19:39the government
19:40every power to decide,
19:41the central government,
19:42not the state government.
19:43And because the state government
19:45is controlled by the BJP,
19:47I said and I just clarified
19:49the context
19:50in which all this is happening.
19:51In today's context,
19:53the net consequence
19:54of this judgment
19:55would be
19:56that it would
19:57further tilt
19:59the scales
19:59in favor of
20:01BJP's attempt
20:02at completely
20:04changing
20:05the electoral
20:06architecture
20:07of this country
20:08to gain
20:09permanent majority.
20:10And yes,
20:11if BJP wants
20:12to target
20:13any particular
20:14section of society,
20:16BJP will order
20:17the government,
20:18government
20:19which enjoys
20:20complete control
20:21over the Election Commission,
20:23an Election Commission
20:24which now today
20:24has complete power
20:26to do what it likes.
20:27So the conclusion
20:28is obvious.
20:28Okay,
20:29so 30 seconds
20:30at the end.
20:31I've heard both sides.
20:33Conclusion at the end.
20:34I think it's very unfortunate
20:35because
20:36because somebody
20:37is appointed
20:38by the government,
20:39they will not follow
20:41the
20:42constitutional
20:43architecture
20:44and they will be
20:45guided only
20:46by what the BJP says.
20:48This is very unfortunate.
20:49By that logic,
20:51everybody
20:51in government appoints
20:52That's his opinion.
20:53That's his opinion.
20:54GBL Nassim Aral,
20:55that's his opinion.
20:57That's his opinion, sir.
20:58You know,
20:59there is an
20:59opportunity
20:59to invite you to meet
21:02the particular
21:02Chief Election Commissioner
21:04at the moment.
21:05Sir,
21:05you know,
21:06institutional decline
21:07is something
21:07we all know of.
21:08How do you arrest it?
21:09You see,
21:10at the end of the day,
21:10the credibility crisis,
21:12those who do not
21:13trust the Election Commission
21:14will continue
21:15not to trust it.
21:16Those who trust it
21:16will feel reinforced
21:18by this judgment.
21:19How do you ensure
21:20that the Election Commission's
21:21credibility
21:22is restored among all?
21:23Does it need to be
21:24more transparent,
21:25a final word
21:26from you,
21:26Dr. Qureshi?
21:27Well,
21:28of course,
21:30every institution
21:31requires credibility
21:32and if there is
21:34a question mark
21:35on the Election Commission's
21:37credibility,
21:37they have to address it.
21:38But I would like
21:39to point out
21:40two things,
21:40Rajdeep.
21:41One,
21:41the good thing
21:42which came out
21:43of this judgment today
21:44is that
21:45a very good pronouncement
21:47that deletion
21:48from the electoral roll
21:49does not mean
21:50deletion from citizenship
21:51and they cannot
21:53be denied
21:53or the benefits
21:55of all the government
21:56schemes
21:56which had started
21:58happening in West Bengal,
22:00at least that protection,
22:01I think it is commendable
22:02and we need to acknowledge that.
22:05Second,
22:05but the other thing,
22:07they say that
22:07anybody who has been deleted
22:09here has a right
22:09to go in appeal.
22:10Now,
22:11right to go in appeal
22:12is a court case.
22:13Now,
22:14please understand
22:15that we are talking
22:16of now millions
22:17of cases
22:18getting filed
22:18and only recently
22:21briefless lawyers
22:22was referred to
22:23as cockroaches.
22:24There is a windfall
22:25for these cockroaches.
22:26They will have
22:27millions of cases
22:28to deal with
22:28these rickshawwallahs,
22:30you know,
22:30poor people.
22:31They will all begin
22:32going to court
22:33in appeal.
22:33So,
22:34that is something
22:34which has been
22:35completely missed,
22:36very simply,
22:37easily conveyed.
22:39Yogi,
22:40you are shaking
22:40your head
22:41when Dr. Qureshi
22:43spoke.
22:44Quick response,
22:4430 seconds.
22:45I wish the court
22:47had said
22:47what Dr. Qureshi
22:48reads in the judgment,
22:49but the court
22:50doesn't say so.
22:51The court simply
22:52reaffirms
22:53the basic position.
22:54Even the election
22:54commission
22:55has never claimed
22:56that they are
22:57the final authority
22:58in deciding
22:58the citizenship.
23:00But I wish
23:00the court
23:01had said,
23:02therefore,
23:02once their names
23:03are deleted
23:04on the ground
23:05of being legal
23:06for this,
23:06only on the basis
23:07of suspicion
23:08or conclusion
23:09of election commission,
23:10they should not
23:11be denied
23:12other benefits.
23:13Unfortunately,
23:14the court judgment
23:14does not say so.
23:16Qureshi sahab,
23:17I wish the court
23:18had even said
23:19that at least
23:20give us a count
23:20of the number
23:21of persons.
23:23Unfortunately,
23:23the court has not
23:24said even that.
23:26Okay,
23:26I'm going to leave it there.
23:27Razib,
23:2915 seconds to hear.
23:31Yes,
23:31the court
23:32clearly said
23:33this will be
23:34for a limited
23:35purpose of deciding
23:37whether somebody
23:37should be on
23:38the electoral list
23:39or not.
23:40The Supreme Court,
23:42the election commission
23:43of India
23:44will have,
23:45can determine
23:46citizenship
23:46for that limited
23:47purpose.
23:48But for larger
23:49citizenship purpose,
23:51I think the
23:51concerned authorities
23:52will decide
23:53it's not the election
23:54commission of India.
23:55Therefore,
23:56by implication,
23:57one will not be
23:58deprived of
23:59citizenship
23:59by not being
24:01automatically,
24:02by not being
24:03on the water race.
24:04Sir,
24:04already welfare
24:05benefits are being
24:06denied even as
24:07we speak in
24:07Bengal to those
24:08who are not
24:09on the list
24:10as decided
24:10through the SR.
24:11but we leave
24:12that debate
24:12for another day.
24:14We are also
24:14seeing lots of
24:15people leaving
24:15the country
24:16on their own
24:17because they
24:18have declared,
24:20they have
24:20self-declared
24:21themselves to be
24:22not to be
24:22citizens of India.
24:23That's also the
24:24reality we cannot
24:25forget.
24:25As I said,
24:26okay,
24:26I'm going to
24:27leave it there.
24:27I appreciate
24:28three fine voices
24:29joining me on
24:30what is a
24:30contentious issue.
24:31Is this India's
24:32ADM Jabalpur
24:33moment as
24:34Yogendra Yadar
24:35seems to suggest
24:36or is it
24:36reinforcing the
24:38right of free
24:39and fair
24:39or is it
24:40reinforcing the
24:41election commissions
24:42claim that they
24:42are conducting
24:43a free and
24:44fair election.
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