Parties oppose SIR timing, say it is a hurdle to local body poll process

Political parties have raised concern about the timing of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters’ list in the State.

At a meeting of Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) Rathan U. Kelkar with recognised political parties here on Saturday, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader M. Vijayakumar said the SIR timing was not at all practical as work related to local body polls was on. The SIR was a hurdle to the election process.

He pointed out that the support of political parties and booth-level agents (BLAs) nominated by the parties had been sought by the CEO’s office, but BLAs were fully involved in the election process.

Booth-level officer (BLOs) were finding the enumeration process tough. It was not possible for them to finish the enumeration before the deadline of December 4.

Mr. Vijayakumar also suggested that the enumeration form distributed to voters should not only be in Malayalam but also in Kannada and Tamil in areas where language minorities lived.

Congress leader M.K. Rahman alleged that in the absence of proper training, BLOs were not able to communicate precise information to the voters. No schedule had been prepared for when exactly BLAs should accompany BLOs.

The website for submitting details of overseas voters opened recently. However, this facility could only be used by those who had linked their phone number to the voter ID. Only a few overseas voters had done that.

Sathyan Mokeri of the Communist Party of India opined that the SIR based on the 2002 voter list was politically motivated and impractical. Revision of the voter list was possible using processes already in place. The Kerala Assembly too had passed a unanimous resolution seeking updation of voter rolls in a fair and transparent manner.

He asked how political parties and BLAs were expected to support the SIR when local body polls were round the corner. The ECI decision on SIR was hasty and a hurdle to the conduct of the local body polls and should be re-examined.

J.R. Padmakumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party said the SIR had been held before too, the last in 2002. It was not called politically motivated then. Seeking an error-free voter list but opposing steps taken by the ECI to ensure the same was impractical. The SIR should go forward so that those ineligible were removed from the voter list. Technical issues did exist related to BLO training or their failure to visit every house for proper verification, he said.

C.P. Cheriya Muhammad and Mohammed Shah of the Indian Union Muslim League spoke about technical problems related to SIR, particularly the need to link voter ID and mobile number in the case of overseas voters. Another issue was discrepancy between details on Aadhaar and voter ID.

The SIR stood for exclusion, not inclusion, they argued, saying people were apprehensive about the verification process that would follow. Not every person would be able to present the forms sought in the declaration, they pointed out.

Decisions taken at meetings with the CEO were not implemented at the BLO level, they added.

K. Jayakumar of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, Joy Abraham of the Kerala Congress, K. Anandhakumar of the Kerala Congress (M) also spoke.