Opinion Piece on SIR

by

Aishwarya Siingh

BAJMC Sem 2

Source: BJP Goa (FB Page)

Sir (Special Intensive Revision), in my opinion, has been done with a greater intention to strike out all the fake voters from the upcoming voter list, particularly the illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants. However, what the government has failed to realize is that during the whole process, it has been observed that at many instances, illegal immigrants tend to had more credential and valid documents as compared to many genuine voters and Indian citizens, casting doubts on achieving the desired outputs from the process. Many credible citizens were observed opting out of the process due to their many reasons, including non-willingness to participate, trust issues regarding the whole electoral process in particular, and the system in general , skipping the whole process in fear of being included in any future list that may, as they feared, stripping them of their rights and titles, or even citizenship, and even worse, being deported to other country. The speed at which this process was announced and conducted added more to the worries of the common man, while the surprise element, with which the government expected to detain the illegal migrants unguarded, didn’t seemed to had any major impact on ground at large.

 

Source: BJP Goa (FB Page)

On the other hand, a number of Booth Level Officer (BLOs) committing suicide, out of pressure, was one of the major political issues raised by political parties. However, what raised doubts on the nature of these deaths, is that most of these were reported in West Bengal, a state poll bound for April-May 2026, with many analysts raising concerns and pointing out to a larger conspiracy, considering the fact that all these BLOs had faced pressure in the past, including the assembly and Lok Sabha election, and other government related activities and processes. Another Bengal related SIR issue was noncompletion of CAA on time, alarming the members of Matua community and other Hindus about their future in the country, who fled Bangladesh to avoid religious persecution. Both Centre and State governments tried to assure the community, but fear seemed to have inflated already.

It’s not that SIR didn’t had an impact, many Bangladeshi intruders were seen crossing various border outputs on Indo-Bangla border to back to home country citing possible crackdown by the authorities. Apart from that, all the states saw the deletion of many voters, most of them being either dead, or had been listed in voter list of multiple cities or states, reducing the number of fake voters across the country .In my view, certain trust building exercises and campaigns should have been conducted by both ECI (Election Commission of India) and the government, before implementing it. Also, SIR should not be held after two decades but rather be conducted regularly at every 5 or 10 years, making it a rather routine process, not attracting unnecessary controversy and political traction, and steps must be taken to make it more transparent, credible and effective.

The lack of time given to complete the process created a chaos amongst the government officials as well as the general public. Although later on the deadline was exceeded. The government officials confirm that the technology was not used in it's full capacity and the BLOs were not well trained for the job. The government failed to create awareness about SIR in general public. While conducting an interview on ground in Uttar Pradesh, I observed highly educated people like teachers , engineers and doctors also denied  to even put a comma in the SIR form as they feared smallest of mistake will lead to cancellation of their citizenship and some said "Yogi ji(CM of Uttar Pradesh) Pakistan bhejwa denge".

(Author’s personal opinion)