Kolkata : CPI(ML) Liberation, a constituent of the Grand Alliance in Bihar, described the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of voters’ lists as a “complete departure” from India’s electoral traditions, and claimed that the exercise threatens to unleash “mass disenfranchisement and vote theft”.

Calling the SIR a “disruptive exercise like demonetisation”, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya alleged that it was designed to tamper with the principle of universal adult franchise.

“The Election Commission (EC) is not the competent body to judge citizenship. Yet, for the first time in 75 years of Indian democracy, people are being asked by the EC to prove their citizenship. This has never happened before. The decision by EC is a complete departure from establish

See Full Page