Deletion of voters under SIR illogical, arbitrary, mischievous: Ex-CEC Quraishi

Bhubaneswar, Sep 6 (PTI) Former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi on Sunday termed the deletion of voters from the electoral rolls under the Special Intensive Revision exercise "illogical, unreasonable, arbitrary and mischievous".

He said that "large-scale deletion of voters from the voters' list is a scam" and claimed that "almost 15 per cent of the population was just wiped out through an artificial process".

"It is sinister and mischievous," he told reporters here.

Expressing surprise that the Supreme Court has "taken a very lenient view, enabling continuation of this atrocity, where names of about 13 to 14 crores of people across the nation were deleted", Quraishi asserted that deletion of valid voters "for any reason is not acceptable".

"Of the total deleted persons, about 90 per cent are definitely eligible (to vote). Has everybody migrated?” he posed and added that "if some voter has migrated, then their names should have been added in the new location."

"Surprisingly, only deletion of names is taking place. Is there no in-migration... only out-migration taking place? It is totally illogical, unreasonable, arbitrary and mischievous,” the former chief election commissioner said.

"Every citizen of India has the fundamental right to be a voter. Even if one eligible person is eliminated from the list for any reason or excuse, it is unconstitutional and illegal, for which somebody should be held accountable," Quraishi said.

He added that there should be criminal liability. "You just cannot take away the fundamental right of the citizen for procedural or bureaucratic reasons or any other reason, which is not understandable to me."

Questioning the sanctity of the 2002 Electoral Roll, which is being compared by the Election Commission of India during the SIR exercise, the former CEC said, “Did it come from the Bible? Is there no mistake on the 2002 electoral roll? My own father’s name had been misspelled on the list. So, it can be used for reference only."