Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 29 (PTI) As the Election Commission of India gears up to implement SIR of voter lists in Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday said the Cabinet has decided to convene an all-party meeting to discuss the steps to oppose the initiative.
Vijayan, at a press conference here, said the decision of the EC to “hastily” implement the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was a matter of concern.
He said that the Kerala Legislative Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution pointing out the dangers of this move, which poses a challenge to the very democratic process of our country, and had urged that the SIR be withdrawn and that the revision of the voters’ list be carried out in a transparent manner.
“Now, the decision has been taken to go ahead with the SIR, disregarding the views of political parties as well as those of the State Chief Electoral Officer.
“The State Election Officer himself had opined that implementing this process now is impractical, given that local body elections are due to be held in the state. This decision must be strongly opposed,” the CM said.
He said that the state cabinet meeting held during the day decided to convene an all-party meeting on November 5 to discuss the next steps.
Meanwhile, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Kerala, Rathan U Kelkar, on Wednesday said that the intention behind SIR was to “create a pure electoral roll by including all eligible people and excluding those ineligible”.
Regarding the concerns of the political parties, Kelkar said that they “need not be alarmed” as any concerns they have can be addressed as he would be holding weekly meetings with them during the implementation of the initiative.
His remarks came while speaking to PTI-video after holding a meeting with the political parties in the state.
Kelkar said that he held the meeting to inform the parties about the schedule of SIR implementation, the preparedness activities and the “modus operandi of implementing” it in Kerala.
He said that he requested the political parties to provide their extensive support in implementing the initiative, especially at the time of house-to-house verification carried out by Booth-Level Officers (BLOs).
“At that time, the presence of booth-level agents of the parties will be very useful,” he said.
The first step of implementing SIR would be distribution and collection of pre-printed enumeration forms, he said.
The printing of the forms has commenced and they will be ready for distribution to all eligible voters by November 4, the Kerala CEO said.
“After that, the only thing the people have to do is verify their credentials in the pre-printed form and give it back to the BLOs or submit it online. Once we get the forms, the process of verification of the claims and objections will happen,” Kelkar said.
The CEO said that the political parties were concerned that the process might impact the upcoming local body elections in the state as many officials would be also working as Returning Officers and the booth-level agents will also be busy with the poll process.
“So, we have requested them to nominate more booth-level agents who would not be actively involved in the poll process and also intimated to them that only a portion of the officials managing the SIR will play the dual role of Returning Officers as well,” Kelkar said.
He said that the SIR implementation and the local body polls will go on “simultaneously” and “seamlessly”.
He expressed confidence that the SIR process will get all the requisite support from the state and the political parties.
Kelkar said that he has informed the political parties about the “strategy” that will be adopted to implement SIR and the “transparency and fairness with which we will be acting”.
“So, I do not see any issues going forward,” he asserted.
Earlier in the day, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the party will oppose the implementation of the SIR of voter lists in Kerala, just as it has done inside and outside Parliament.
Terming the initiative as an “affront to democracy”, she said, “Given how they (EC) have done it in Bihar, we have fought against it in Parliament and outside it. We will continue to fight against it everywhere.” PTI HMP HMP ROH SA