CPI(M) says SIR will disenfranchise an estimated 50 lakh voters in Kerala

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State Secretariat on Friday said the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters’ list in the short run-up to the local body polls and the Assembly elections in 2026 risked disenfranchising an estimated 50 lakh voters in Kerala.

Party State secretary M.V. Govindan noted that the ECI’s decision to use the 2002 electoral rolls as a point of reference for preparing the latest voters’ list was fundamentally flawed.

“In the past 23 years, the Kerala population has increased by nearly 1.57 crore. The number of polling booths in the State has risen by 10,000,” he said. 

Mr. Govindan said the ECI, acting at the instance of the BJP, had made inclusion in the latest voters’ list impossibly difficult for large swathes of the population.

“The ECI does not accept Kerala’s ration cards as valid identity. Instead, it requires a set of 12 difficult-to-obtain documents, including proof of parentage, domicile and nativity, to be enlisted as a voter. The ECI has deliberately introduced extensive red tape to make voter registration a knotty task. It had initially refused to accept even Aadhaar cards as proof of identity, but hastily backtracked under censure from the Supreme Court,” he added. 

Mr. Govindan said Kerala, among other States, had challenged the SIR in the Supreme Court. The apex court judgment in the litigation was pending. “However, the ECI seems undeterred, despite risking contempt of court,” he added. 

He noted the ECI was pushing ahead with the SIR, despite reservations raised by the State’s Chief Electoral Officer. “The exercise would stretch the State’s resources thin as it moves into the election mode,” he added. 

Mr. Govindan stated that the ECI’s “arbitrary decision” to conduct the SIR, despite objections from political parties and non-BJP-ruled State governments, was a precursor to implementing the “segregationist” National Citizens Register (NCR).

“The NCR will lay the ground for categorising large sections of the citizenry as illegals earmarked for deportation. The NCR, a Sangh Parivar agenda, is loaded against minorities, tribals, Dalits, backward classes, refugees, economically disadvantaged sections and legal immigrants. It is inextricably linked to the anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA),“ he said.

Mr. Govindan said the ECI’s SIR in Bihar had disenfranchised an estimated 65 lakh voters, the majority of them Muslims and members of other marginalised and economically disadvantaged sections of society. 

The CPI(M) will conduct a national seminar on SIR in October, with top politicians, jurists, writers, thinkers, and intellectuals in attendance. It will muster the public in strength to protest ECI’s politically partisan efforts to undermine democracy and erode the credibility of elections.