Identifying Citizens: Electoral Rolls,the Right to Vote,and the Election Commission of India

Abstract

Abstract

Under the provisions of the Constitution of India, the Election Commission has an affirmative responsibility to prepare the electoral rolls. The debates in the Constituent Assembly show that the Election Commission was envisaged as a constitutional body entrusted with the task of giving effect to the principle of equality of the citizen-voter, ensuring that no eligible voter was excluded from the electoral rolls on grounds of religion, race, caste, or gender. Yet, the constitutional role of the Election Commission of preparing the electoral rolls has unfolded in uneven and contradictory ways, so much so that it has vacillated between playing the role of a protector and facilitator, and in specific contexts it has also opened itself to charges of discrimination. This contradictory position of the Election Commission is made manifest in particular in those contexts where it has been implicated in disputes over citizenship. While the preparation of electoral rolls is not an exercise of identifying citizens, and the determination of citizenship is outside the jurisdiction of the Election Commission, disputes over electoral rolls show that the task of “superintending” the preparation of electoral rolls has in specific contexts translated into the power of the Election Commission to identify “legitimate” voters and to sift out for that purpose, the citizens from non-citizens. A stern adherence to procedures has also led the Election Commission on a collision course with specific state governments, following the Election Commission's initiative to check the validity of voters, emerging from what the Election Commission saw as a “suspicious” increase in the number of voters.