The last Special Intensive Revision of Voters’ List was carried out in 2002-03 without anybody even coming to know of it just like India became a 1 or 2 trillion dollar economy without much publicity. It is only when India became a 3 trillion dollar economy that the country came to know of it thanks to the propaganda embarked upon by the Modi government. Similarly, the 2025-26 SIR is taking place with a lot of hullabaloo. This government has a knack for making a show out of everything.

The SIR form has the current details of voter printed. S(he) has to provide date of birth, Adhar Card number (not mandatory), names of parents and spouse and if available their current Electoral Photo Identity Card numbers. This is the easier part. The bottom half is critical. This is what will prove that the voter or his/her family have been living in this country for the last 23 years, a criteria decided by Election Commission of India, to determine genuine citizens of this country, although they don’t say this is so many words. Anybody failing to provide these details is in danger of their name being struck off the voters’ rolls.

In the bottom half one has to provide either one’s details in the voter list published after last SIR in 2003 or that of one of the parents or grandparents in that list. The 2003 voter list has been made available on the website of ECI. However, if one is not sure of one’s Assembly Constituency or the booth where one’s name figured in the 2003 voter list then one can end up wasting precious hours searching for one’s or parents’ or grandparents’ details, for these lists are not machine searchable, the PDF being in Hindi in Uttar Pradesh. It is quite likely that one is living at the same place but Assembly Constituency as well as polling booth might have changed. People are confused as they are unable to recall their booth even if they happen to have found out their AC from people living in that area. Fortunately, the mobile numbers of Booth Level Officers are given at the top of the SIR form and they usually pick up the phone unless they are distressed or have succumbed due to work pressure. The higher level officials are not helping by just concentrating on their performance compared to the other states.

Some BLOs are telling people to merely fill the top part of the form and submit it to them. There are diligent BLOs, especially in rural areas where it is easier to do so as the voters or their families haven’t moved, are filling the critical three figures – AC number, Part number and serial number of voter, in the bottom half and then giving it to the voter to fill the remaining form. It is not clear as to what will happen to the forms which have only the top half filled as advised by their BLOs. If one discovers their or their parents’ or grandparents’ 2003 details after having submitted the form with top half filled, the BLOs are not willing to update the SIR form with additional information saying it is beyond their mandate, jeopardising the chances of voter making it to the revised list. There are BLOs, who under pressure to show results, are filling forms of voters without their consent and submitting them. If the names of these voters don’t appear in the initial list to be published after the deadline for filling SIR forms then they’ll have to fill form 6 to get their names added as a new voter.

There are voters, who find themselves in quandary because their names or their parents’ or grandparents’ names appear in the 2003 list but they haven’t received the SIR form as they don’t find their names in the current list. Their names have been either accidentally or deliberately removed from the voter rolls. As they haven’t received the SIR they cannot submit it in spite of having the old EPIC and their or their parents’ or grandparents’ names in 2003 list. They too will be required to fill the form 6 even though they are not new voters.

As a specific case people living in Vasant Kunj, Lucknow who were allotted houses under the PM urban EWS housing scheme after their original houses were demolished in Akbar Nagar last year in a different AC are not being given their SIR forms by the BLO who claims that he has been instructed from the top to not give the forms to the former Akbar Nagar residents. The District Electoral Officer, who happens to be the DM, wants them to fill form 6 for new voters after the initial list is released. It is quite likely that when hundreds of citizens, mostly Muslims, will fill form 6, somebody or the other is going to raise the issue of so many new Muslim voters being added to the voters roll, overlooking the fact that they or their parents or grandparents have been voters in 2003. Tech savvy people from this community who have successfully filled their SIR form online are being told by the BLO of Akbar Nagar that their forms will be rejected. A real possibility of disenfranchisement stares in their faces.

Yogi Adityanath is not helping the cause of voter list revision by declaring in the middle of SIR process that detention centres will be created in each district. These detention centres were originally conceived in Assam where there is a problem of foreigners, Bangladeshis illegally entering India. But where is the problem of foreigners or intruders in UP, or for that matter in Bihar? During Bihar SIR the only intruders they could discover were Nepalese women married to Indian men, such marriages being common in the border area. And the authorities cannot do anything about them.

Now the Lucknow Mayor Sushma Kharakwal has gone on a drive to identify Bangladeshis among sanitation workers. Before her Brij Lal, a Rajya Sabha MP and retired Director General of Police one day stopped his car and enquired from a group of sanitation workers about their identity. Do people’s representatives have a right to verify citizenship of anybody? In Assam there is a Foreigners Tribunal set up under the Foreigners Act which adjudicates on the matter of citizenship. People residing in Basic Services for Urban Poor scheme houses in Dubagga, Lucknow are being visited by police to provide their occupancy documents and copies of their adhar cards. The harassment by the administration has caused fear in the minds of people.

This manhunt for the elusive intruder is basically a propaganda of the BJP. It helps them in polarisation of votes. There was no reason to do the SIR in Bihar in a hurry and now the same thing is being done in UP, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry and Lakshadweep. The panic created among voters and BLOs was definitely avoidable.

On major street crossings in Lucknow Public Address System is making an appeal to the voters to fill their enumeration forms online. For filling the form online the EPIC has to be linked to a mobile number and even though the enumeration form says that providing Adhar Card information is optional, an OTP will be sent to the mobile number linked to the Adhar Card. Thus the online process compels one to reveal their Adhar Card number. The spellings of names in English along with EPIC number will be accepted only if they match with what has been fed into the computer by EC employees. The lists available contain names in Hindi. Then the names on Adhar and EPIC must precisely match. If the real intention was to enable people to fill their SIR forms online, then requirement of linking mobile phone numbers to Adhar card and EPIC and exact matching of names on Adhar and EPIC would not have been there. It unnecessarily complicates matter. One will consider oneself lucky if they are able to fill the form successfully.

It is quite clear that the SIR process has been undertaken without thorough preparation by the ECI and thrust upon the people in a manner which is casting doubt on the intention of ECI. Nobody knows why the citizens are being harassed in this manner compared to the earlier process where the BLO would visit homes and treating the citizen with respect complete the verification process without making a fuss about it? Today the administration is on rampage and citizens are victims.

By Arundhati Dhuru and Sandeep Pandey

Contact numbers: 9415022772, 9919664444, 0522 2355978, 3564437

email ids: arundhatidhuru@gmail.com, ashaashram@yahoo.com

Note: Arundhati Dhuru is with National Alliance of People’s Movements and Sandeep Pandey is with Socialist Party (India).