Recently Election Commission of India (ECI) An order issued For special intensive amendment of electoral rolls for Bihar. This practice will then be done in all states. This order is opposed to the tradition of this August institute. From the first election held in independent India, ECI has played a heroic role in sowing democracy through active voter enrollment and protection of the right to vote for the underprivileged.
Although ECI is facing late credibility crisis, this initiative is surprisingly radical. And until it is largely modified, it will separate the poor and disadvantaged voters despite their party’s preference. We will give up experts to abandon the thorny questions of legitimacy and simply focus on the scale of the enterprise and its practicality within the proposed timeline.
According to the instructions, all those individuals who have not been painted in the 2003 electoral rolls need to prove their citizenship according to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 and the rules. Broadly, if there are almost all individuals in the 2003 electoral rolls who were aged 18 or older, then these people, now 40 years and older, get direct entry into the proposed electoral rolls. So how many have to go through the hops?
Affected population
In 2020, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare published a report, population estimates for India and states 2011–36. The report estimates that Bihar’s current polling age population is 8.08 crore. About 59% of this population (4.76 crore persons) is 40 years old. ECI, from July 1 to July 31, requires this shocking number to prove citizenship.
In its press note on 28 June, the ECI said that the counting of voters in Bihar is 7.9 crore. According to the ECI, “His names are already in the final intensive amendment of the electoral rolls as a 4.96 crore of 7.9 crore”, in 2003, only 2.94 crore persons will need to present their eligibility documents.
This is clearly an inspection. There were about 4.96 crore persons in the 2003 election role for Bihar. By calculating our sample registration system reports, about 1.1 million of them are dead. ECI has removed him from the role.
In addition, there are a number of people who have permanently moved out of Bihar. According to a Pinak government paper, Professor of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, received from census, 93 million people permanently moved out of Bihar between 2001 and 2011. Even though the migration has slowed down a bit after 2011, an average of 1.76 million migrants will be meant by an average of 8 lakh out-migrants from Bihar in a period of 2003-24.
If the share of people above 18 years of age in the 1.76 crore group is the same as the ratio in the population of Bihar, then it is the amount of 94 lakh voters who have permanently moved out of Bihar. If even a quarter of them are voters in Bihar, then 70 lakhs are no longer voters in Bihar and are voting elsewhere in India. The ECI must have removed him from the Bihar election role.
Therefore, among the 2003 list of 4.96 crore voters, if we remove those who are dead and who have migrated permanently from Bihar, about 3.16 crore voters live in the current count of voters of Bihar. These 3.16 crore people who were also in the 2003 list do not need to present any eligibility documents. The remaining 4.74 crore persons (7.9 crore -3.16 crore) need to submit their documents.
This figure is similar to our estimate of 4.76 crores based on population estimates. The ECI requires this staggering quantity to prove the eligibility to vote within a month.
Evidence of citizenship
What is this evidence of eligibility? ECI says that a copy of a document should be presented in the list of 11. Looks simple? Perhaps for another state, but certainly not for documents like Bihar for the state. Let us list 11 documents and look at the data that is publicly available for our demographic of 18-40 years.
The first is the identity card/pension card of the state government/central government/public sector undertaking. According to the 2022 caste census, 20.47 lakh Biharis have government jobs. Less than half of them will be from the age group of 18-40 and will be less than 2% of this group.
The second is an identity card issued before 1 July 1987. This is not applicable.
The third is a birth certificate. According to the National Family Health Survey -3, 2.8% of Bihar’s population, born between 2001 and 2005, has a birth certificate. Most of our age groups were born before 2001, so a negligible ratio is with this document.
The fourth is a passport. About 2.4% of Bihar’s population has passports. This share will be higher in the age group of 20-40, but will not reach double digits.
The fifth is a matriculation certificate. The children of 18–40-year, derived from the National Family Health Survey-2 and National Family Health Survey-5, are about 45–50% matriculation. By 2019-20, there is a total difference of 10% points between male matriculation and female matriculation: women are in a certain loss.
Sixth is a dominance. Bihar has an insignificant proportion of migrant population.
The seventh is a forest rights certificate. According to the 2011 census, Scheduled Tribes (ST) in Bihar accounts for 1.3%. Among them, people living in the forests make very little part.
Eighth is another Backward Class (OBC)/Scheduled Castes (SC)/ST Certificate. India’s forums have noticed the data of India Human Development Survey -2 analyzed by Professor Ashwini Deshpande and Rajesh Ramachandran that about 20% of SCS, 18% of OBCs and 38% ST had a caste certificate. Given that almost any upper castes do not have caste certificates, about 16% of Biharis had a caste certificate in 2011-12 when the survey was conducted.
Those eligible persons who are 30-40 years old today had already received a caste certificate by 2012, they wanted; Even if the remaining high ratio obtains caste certificates in high proportion, then there is a possibility of not one of the four houses in total.
There is a national register of ninth citizens. This is completely applicable to Assam.
The tenth family is register. This is also not applicable to Bihar.
The final government has a land/house allocation certificate. No data is available on land allocation certificates. The House Allotment Certificate applies to government employees availing government housing. No such certificate has been given to the beneficiaries of schemes like Pradhan Mantri Gram Avas Yojana.
Without a matriculation certificate, most people are unlikely to apply for passport, government job or caste certificate. According to the new ECI rule, the matriculation certificate has become effectively the main eligibility proof for voters between the ages of 18 to 40 years. This transfers us to a system from adult suffrage that only in favor of matriculation. As a result, around 2.4 crore -2.6 million people who had to leave school due to poverty can now get out of the list of voters.
If we have missed the list of voters of 2003 and the current names of more than 40 people do not match with those whose final number of disintegrated people will be even larger than this. These hundreds of million people will lose their constitutional rights to vote as they are illegal migrants, but because they are illegal to a state that lacks birth certificates, providing basic education or the ability to issue caste certificates to the disadvantaged castes. A state cannot punish so many people for its shortcomings.
Why not base?
This is also a simple question: If ECI allows for OBC/SC/ST certificates, Aadhaar is not allowed if the proof of the identity document for the caste certificate is the base? It should not be that the main defect of the base is that it is more available – about 9/10th of Bihar’s population. Does ECI believe that it has issued voter cards to non-citizens? Also, why not allow ration card?
Nevertheless, even though the list of acceptable documents has been revised to become more inclusive, the project will separate people or bureaucracy will become garbage due to the sheer pause of time.
We think all 4.76 crores, who are asked to submit documents, do this: ie, on average, 1.95 lakhs per constituency. Each constituency consists of an Election Registration Officer (ERO) who has many other important duties. (The ECI website has no information about any auxiliary eoses in Bihar.) In 62 days between July 1 and 31 August, they have to check about 2 lakh applications, prepare a draft roll, issue a notice, and start a soo moto inquiry for each electoral, which is suspected of eligibility. This is a supernatural function.
Rahul Shastri is a researcher who is associated with the Bharat Jodo Campaign
