The draft electoral rolls for Tamil Nadu, published late last week by the Election Commission of India (ECI) after the special intensive revision (SIR), belie well-known demographic trends. No less than 97.4 lakh voters’ names have been deleted, reducing the State’s voting population from 6.41 crore to 5.4 crore — a decrease of 15.2% across 38 districts. Even after conceding that these are only draft rolls and will be revised with the addition of new voters and successful challenges to deletions, the numbers run counter to nationwide trends in migration and births and deaths.
Deletions due to the SIR are particularly pronounced in the urban areas of the State. In Chennai, a major destination for in-migration, the pre-SIR voter list of 40 lakh has been scrubbed down by 14.25 lakh, a drop of 35.6%. In some Assembly constituencies in the State capital, the drop is even steeper: in Anna Nagar (down 42.2%), Villivakkam (40.7%), Thousand Lights (40.7%) and T Nagar (40.8%), the draft voter list is leaner by at least 40%. The State’s 58 Assembly constituencies, home to 28.6% of pre-SIR voters, account for 45% of the deletions. These facts beg the question: where, if not to the cities, are voters moving?
Explaining the deletions, the ECI says 66.44 lakh removals were on account of either migration or untraceable addresses, 26.94 lakh due to death, and 3.39 lakh due to name duplication. The very high share attributed to migration is a red flag because, as per Census trends, in-migration into Tamil Nadu from other States exceeds out-migration. The much higher deletions in DMK strongholds compared to Opposition areas are another factor that triggers alarm.
Even compared to the previous exercise done more than two decades ago, this overhaul of the electoral rolls is remarkable. Then, 55 lakh voters were scrubbed statewide — roughly 9-10% of the then electorate — compared to 97 lakh removed now. In sheer numbers, voter deletions in Tamil Nadu dwarf those in Bihar (65 lakh) and Gujarat (73.73 lakh), and in terms of proportion (15.4%), they top every other State or Union Territory that has published post-SIR draft rolls so far.
The Bihar precedent must worry every voter in the country. In that State, the net — and perhaps selective — reduction of 6% of the voter list produced a stunning electoral outcome that defied all projections, returning an incumbent government of turncoats and giving a 90% strike rate to the BJP in particular.
It is no one’s case that voter lists should not be refreshed. The Opposition’s contention is that the SIR has been poorly timed, badly planned and hastily executed — with partisan intent to boot. It has the potential to cause mass disenfranchisement of rightful voters and therefore poses a grave peril to India’s electoral democracy. Especially in crucial States like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the manner in which the SIR is being conducted is fraught with risk. When the people’s true mandate is sought to be thwarted through sleights of hand, bad outcomes follow — and can last generations — as seen after the disputed elections of 1987 in Jammu and Kashmir.
The situation calls for the Supreme Court to intervene, to impart some sense to the ECI, both to carry out the exercise with much greater deliberation and to do so with fairness and impartiality.