‘Mass disenfranchisement’ claims about voter roll revision are without basis, EC tells Supreme Court

The Election Commission told the Supreme Court that there was no basis to allegations that the special intensive revision of electoral rolls would lead to “mass disenfranchisement”, The Hindu reported.

The poll panel said that 95.6% of the voters in Tamil Nadu and 99.7% in West Bengal had already been given pre-filled enumeration forms. Of these, it had already received back 58.7% of the forms and digitised them, it told the court.

It made the statements in affidavits filed in response to petitions challenging the revision of the electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi have been hearing petitions against the validity of the exercise.

The court will hear Tamil Nadu’s petition on December 4 and that of West Bengal on December 9. At the previous hearing, it had heard Kerala’s petition to defer the process. The bench had asked the poll panel to file its response to this by December 1. The matter will be heard on December 2.

In its affidavits responding to the petitions filed by Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the Election Commission dismissed claims made by the Opposition that there was up to 30% voter exclusion in West Bengal, The Hindu reported.

It said that the statistics on the distribution of pre-filled enumeration forms...

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