Yogendra Yadav, the National Convener of the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, who has been closely and carefully monitoring and assessing the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls presently underway in Bihar, says the exercise is unconstitutional and fraudulent. In an interview with Karan Thapar, he compares it to notebandi (demonetisation) and calls it ‘votebandi’.The full text of the interview is below, with some light edits. It has been transcribed by Joshua Kullu.Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. Serious, if not damaging, questions are increasingly being asked about the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls that is presently underway in Bihar. Is it in fact a revision or is it an attempt to create an altogether new voters list? At this stage, does the Election Commission have the right to question the citizenship of people whom are already enrolled or seek to be enrolled? And apart from that, how efficiently and effectively is the exercise being done? Those are three of the many issues I shall raise today with someone who’s taken a firm and outspoken stand on the issue. He’s the national convenor of the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, Yogendra Yadav. Yogendra Yadav, let me start by trying to understand the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls that is presently underway in Bihar. In your eyes, is it really a revision of the rolls or is it an attempt to create an altogether new voters list?Yogendra Yadav: Karan, there cannot be any doubts about it and this is not just my position. This is the Election Commission’s official position that this is a rewriting of the voters list. So it’s not a question of opinion. Therefore the word revision is somewhat misleading. It is, you know, the revision used to be that you go with the existing list. You delete some names, you add a few names, you make corrections. That is not what is happening today in Bihar. It is a completely fresh exercise. Election Commission reiterates that in its affidavit to the Supreme Court once again, it’s a completely new exercise, freshwater list is being prepared de novo but more than that, Karan, and that’s something that everyone needs to understand.Number one, there’s nothing Bihar specific here it’s, an all India order. It so happens that it begins with Bihar. Number two, it is not just a revision or rewriting of the voters list, it is a tectonic shift in the architecture of universal adult franchise in India. I know I’m making a big claim, let me spell it out. For the last 75 years, this country has implemented the idea of universal adult franchise with the help of three major decisions. Number one, in our country, unlike in the US as you would know, the onus of being there on the electoral rolls is not on the voter, not on the citizen. The onus is on the state, on the officials. They have to come to my home to enroll. For the first time in the history of this country, the onus is now being shifted on the voter. You fill the form, in case you fail to fill the form, “Thank you very much. Goodbye. You’re not a voter.” Number two, for the last 75 years in this country, with very poor quality of documentation, the Election Commission had taken a position and it’s a position which is inscribed in our rules and laws that the presumption would be that you are a citizen. If I see you residing in any part of this country, I presume that you are a citizen unless I have some evidence to the contrary, in which case I can ask you for things. I can ask you to prove, otherwise the presumption is that you are an Indian citizen. For the first time in the history of this country, the presumption is being overturned. Now the question is, Karan Thapar, “I don’t know if you are an Indian citizen, please prove”, for the first time in the history of this country people are being asked to produce documents to show that they are citizens. And Karan, finally for the first time standard practices and protocols followed for the last 75 years by Election Commission and coded in its rules in its handbook, which was about inclusiveness, which was about incorporation, that is being turned on its head. For the last 75 years, the Election Commission has been saying 99.8% is not enough, we have to somehow ensure that that 0.01% who gets left out, the person who sleeps on the street, the sex worker, the transgenders, orphans, everyone has to be included. Not a single person left behind. Now the name of the game is how many can be excluded. In Bihar 51 lakhs have already been declared. So that’s why I say it’s a tectonic shift in the architecture of universal adult franchise in India.Karan Thapar: I want very much to focus a considerable part of this interview on the manner in which the Election Commission is trying to probe people’s censorship and whether they are right to do so or completely constitutionally wrong. And let me begin by saying when the Election Commission claims as it has done that what they’re really doing is to inquire into whether voters are alive or dead, whether they’ve moved or whether they are duplicate names. Do you suspect that behind the disguise of that claim what they’re actually involved in is a surreptitious checking of citizenship of voters? The claim is one but the real intention is to check into citizenship?Yogendra Yadav: Once again Karan this is not a matter of opinion. The Election Commission clearly says that they are going to check citizenship. They say it is their right to do so. They say it’s their duty to do so. They reiterate that in the day before yesterday’s affidavit to the Supreme Court. So it’s not surreptitious. They’re openly doing it. The Election Commission, for the first time, is clearly saying that, under article 326 which requires that every voter should be a citizen, they must check the citizenship of every person. The Supreme Court in its previous hearing clearly said it’s none of your business. No, but the Supreme Court, the Election Commission has gone ahead in its affidavit, they have reiterated that this is what they are supposed to do. Now Karan, checking whether people are dead or not, checking whether they have migrated or not, checking whether correct names are on the voters list is indeed Election Commission’s prerogative responsibility and duty. But whether election, it is Election Commission’s power to check citizenship is something which is in the court of law. I’m sure it will be settled there. So far, no Election Commission of India thought it was their responsibility to do so.Karan Thapar: Well, in fact, there is a Gauhati High Court judgment of 1993 which was upheld subsequently by the Supreme Court, which makes it crystal clear that checking into citizenship is not the requirement of the Election Commission. In contrast to that, the election commission in its affidavit of Monday claims, A) that it’s incumbent upon voters to provide proof of citizenship and B) They also claim that they have a right to demand proof of citizenship. Now in contrast, I want to quote to you what the Gauhati High Court said in 1993. Its precise words were, “rules do not contemplate any inquiry into the question of citizenship at the stage of preparation of draft rolls.” Therefore what the Election Commission is doing is contradicting and contravening what the Gauhati High Court laid down and which the Supreme Court upheld. Yogendra Yadav: I’m no lawyer Karan, but what you are saying is eminently sensible and as a matter of fact, Justice Dhulia in an open court said when Election Commission’s lawyer started pleading that, ‘look under article 326 we have to check whether someone is a citizen’ Justice Dhulia said in the court, “are you sure you want to pursue this line of inquiry? This is none of your business.” This was in open court, I was there in the court so I can report on, he said it is none of your business, it is home ministry’s business. Are you sure you want to pursue this line of inquiry? He actually stopped him from arguing this because he was so absolutely clear in the court. So this is an established process. In any case, you see there is a kind of a division of labour, forgetting the legal nuances and so on. There’s a division of labour. In this country, the job of Election Commission has been to encompass as many as possible which I call, drawing upon some scholars, logic of encompassment. My job is to make sure that every single person is included and it is the job of home ministry bureaucrats to decide who may not be citizen. Once they take a decision then the Election Commission is bound to follow their advice, follow whatever they have decided because then they are not the citizen. But this is not the principal job of the Election Commission going back to the days of the great Sukumar Sen, which this country must remember and salute the very first chief Election Commissioner of this country. The job of the Election Commission has been to ensure that every single person is included and they’re going back on that.Karan Thapar: In fact, let me point out the Election Commission itself, as far back as 1983, ruled that illegal migrants are not a concern of the commission. This is what the Election Commission’s annual report of 1983 said and I’m quoting, “The question of illegal migrants is not the concern of the Election Commission or any authorities working under its superintendent control and direction.” And then it added, “It would be inappropriate and without jurisdiction to delete the names of illegal migrants whose names had been included in earlier and successive electoral rolls.” Now the Election Commission is doing precisely what it said it has no business to do.Yogendra Yadav: Exactly, and also casting aspersions on the previous elections. So if the Election Commission says that it is our duty to check citizenship of every voter, that the electoral roll is defective if it does not do this kind of a checking then may I ask what happened in 2014? What happened in 2019? What happened in 2024? And are they saying that the person who was elected the Prime Minister of this country based on those elections was a fraudulent choice, based on a fraudulent voters list? Because Article 326 has not changed. It’s been there right from the beginning of this constitution. How can you suddenly overturn that? How does the basic understanding of the commission itself, understanding of the court and understanding of the constitution as encoded in laws of representation of this country, how can that suddenly overturn? And that’s why people like me argue and I must say that I’m one of the litigants before the court. That’s why we have argued, this is unconstitutional. No, there are lots of questions about how it’s actually being practiced in Bihar, which is actually a fiction, which is a joke. But apart from the practical questions, fundamentally this is anti-constitution.Karan Thapar: Absolutely. So can I sum up this section of the interview by saying that what the Election Commission is attempting to do by inquiring into the citizenship of voters or people already enrolled on voters list is A) It’s succeeding its own powers. B) It’s contravening what the Gauhati high court upheld by the Supreme Court has laid down and C) It’s contravening what it said itself in its own annual report of 1983, in other words it’s contravening its own practice of the past. On all three counts, It’s guilty of transgression.Yogendra Yadav: Indeed, and as I said right in the beginning, this is so people are, you know, people normally assume that some lafra is happening in Bihar, some voters list is being changed. No, something fundamentally is at stake here, which is the universal adult franchise that is being tinkered with. The architecture of universal adult franchise which is the very foundation of the constitution is being overturned.Karan Thapar: Now presumably in its defence, the Election Commission said to the Supreme Court in the affidavit it filed on Monday, that citizenship will not, in other words, the termination of citizenship does not mean that a person is ineligible for registration. But if that ineligibility is because you can’t prove you’re a citizen, then surely the home ministry will immediately take action. And that’s precisely what happened to D voters in Assam. So what do you make of the Election Commission’s claim that citizenship termination will not affect anything?Yogendra Yadav: In fact if I remember correctly the Election Commission is arguing that if you are removed from electoral rolls that does not automatically lead to your termination of citizenship. So it’s an assurance the Election Commission is trying to hold out. Funny thing Karan is this, that if you look at Election Commission’s own guidelines, clause 5 part B if I remember correctly, it actually says these are guidelines issued by the Election Commission on 24th of June for this very SIR in Bihar. It says that if the electoral authorities discover that someone who is not a citizen of India then they are duty bound to report it under the foreign registration act. So what the Election Commission is saying to the Supreme Court is exactly contrary to what they have laid down for Bihar this time. They have actually, for the first time in my mind in the history of Election Commission documentation, the Election Commission is setting up a relationship with the home ministry and saying that if we, you can delete someone from the voters list on various counts. Maybe the person is dead. Maybe the person has a duplicate vote. Maybe the person is permanently residing somewhere else. But if you delete them on the ground that the person is not a citizen then in fact the rules require you now, not the rules the guidelines issued by the Election Commission, require that it be reported under the foreign registration act.Karan Thapar: and immediately thereafter the home ministry will take action and presume to deport you and this is precisely what happened to people who were deemed to be D voters in Assam not so long ago. They were all sent to foreigners’ tribunals, foreigners’ tribunals refused, in most cases, to uphold their citizenship and now they’re being steadily deported. In some cases they’re being literally pushed across the border. That is happening as we speak.Yogendra Yadav: In Assam it was not a result of the Election Commission doing, it was a result of NRC and police and home and government exercise. Sadly in this country the one body which is in charge of inclusive citizenship, that body is now being associated with this law and order job of exclusion. In fact, Professor Ashutosh Varshney has a very powerful article recently which quotes examples from American history and says, “for the first time now inclusiveness is being turned on its head and its citizenship is being turned into an instrument of exclusion.”Karan Thapar: Quite right. Just as in America, blacks were required to be property owners or to have certain educational criteria and on those basis were ruled out as voters. The same thing is happening in India too because you are required to prove your citizenship and you can’t, you don’t have the documents, you’re poor, you don’t have access to them, your name will be struck off the list and who knows if you’re then deemed to be doubtful. The home ministry could take action and you could be deported. All of that could follow quite logically.Yogendra Yadav: Yeah, absolutely. And that is really the shocking thing about what the Election Commission is doing. The boundary line between the Election Commission and the home ministry is being erased. You know something funny I’ve just looked up, seen this morning. The Election Commission is saying the West Bengal government must declare its CEO to be an independent authority. I’m sure the Election Commission would want the same to happen in every state that’s ruled by the BJP as well. But funnily you insist that your CEO in Bengal must be an independent autonomous authority. Sir, would you care to declare yourself as an independent and autonomous authority? Would you care not to be part of the home ministry?Karan Thapar: Absolutely. One more question about the citizenship issue before I broaden our discussion and come to other areas of concern. According to ‘The Hindu’ on the 14th of July, the Election Commission has told the paper that they found a large number of people from Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar during the recent special intensive revision. My question is simple. How does the commission know they’re Nepali, Bangladesh, and Myanmarese? Did these people say so? Did the commission by accident stumble upon their identity cards which gave the game away? Or has the commission simply jumped to the conclusion?Yogendra Yadav: That’s the funny part, Karan. So the Election Commission has been speaking through sources. This is exactly what the PMO does. This is exactly what the home ministry does. This is what the ministry of external affairs used to do.Karan Thapar: Can I just correct you? The headline of ‘The Hindu’ actually says, “says the EC.” It was the main front page story on the 14th, the principal story of the paper on that day. And the headline clearly says, “the EC says”.Yogendra Yadav: Good. I’m glad you said that. I’m glad. Because now look at that 789 page affidavit filed by the Election Commission. 789 pages with PDF, now you can search. Search for the word ‘illegal migrant’. Search for ‘Bangladesh’. Search for any of these words. They do not exist. So on paper when they have to go on an affidavit to the Supreme Court and when they know they can be punished for saying something which is silly, stupid or wrong, they do not utter a word. All this is for public consumption. The Election Commission has not said in the objectives of the exercise, they do not mention the word illegal migrant in the affidavit of what they have actually done. They do not use the word illegal migrant, and Karan, every evening Election Commission rolls out a press release which gives you a number of persons who have filled forms and number of persons who should not, I mean who are ineligible. They make four categories of ineligible. Not one person so far has been reported on that count from Bihar, for being illegal migrants.Karan Thapar: In other words, this is a, in quotes, “propaganda exercise” which they were trying to fulfil by giving information to The Hindu which they cannot substantiate and they cannot stand up and defend.Karan Thapar: Let’s then at this point come to the second big issue, the timing of this special intensive revision. Is it proper that it should be conducted just 4 months before elections are due? In 2003 when allegedly the last special intensive revision was done, it was held 2 years before assembly elections, not just 4 months in advance.Yogendra Yadav: Exactly Karan. Just one minor correction, special intensive revision has never taken place in the history of this country for the simple fact that it does not exist in law. The word ‘intensive revision’ exists. The word ‘special revision’ exists. Special intensive revision is a new word coined by the Election Commission for very very special purposes but anyway, forget it. The intensive revision that took place in Bihar in 2003, number one, was nothing of the kind that is happening now. No forms were required. No affidavits or any formal documents were required. In other words, it was a much lighter and simpler exercise. In 2003, they were simply required to go home to home, check the names, rewrite the same name if it is correct or change the spellings or make any corrections and come back. That exercise as you rightly said took place one year before the Lok Sabha election. The exercise everyone, you know because in the media now they say it took only 31 days, no sir, it was advertised several months before that. There was one month of preparation leading up to that and mind you this time there was only 12 hours of preparation. One month of preparation followed by this exercise which was only about going house to house. No documents, no performer to be fulfilled, nothing to be uploaded. Uploading took months and months after that so, number one, there’s no parallel to 2003. Number two, this exercise is particularly odd to Karan, and this is something which Justice Bakshi asked in the Supreme Court. He said, ‘All right, assuming they want to do it, assuming you have the power, assuming that you need to do it, why not detach it from the Bihar election?’ Do it over the next one year, take your time and implement in the next election, what’s the hurry? Why are you connecting it to the election? The exercise of rewriting the electoral rolls just 4 months before elections has never happened in the history of this country and that too, Karan, Bihar. You’ve been to Bihar, everyone who’s been to Bihar knows that this is perhaps the most difficult state in the country to carry something like this and not to forget the fact that this is monsoon. Bihar has floods. Bihar floods are not ordinary floods of the kind that some cities occasionally see. In Bihar flood means villages are wiped out every year. Villages are completely wiped out in Bihar. And this is also in the areas that do not see floods. This is also the time for sewing of the next crop too, I mean I cannot believe that the Election Commission did not know all these things because these are all part of the regular calendar activities of the Election Commission. Having known all this for the Election Commission to announce something like this gives rise to suspicion, especially in view of the fact that 25 days before the Election Commission announced such a grand move, the Election Commission itself does not seem to have known it. Because on 30th of May, if you check, the media carries a report about the chief Election Commission coming up with 21 new initiatives for overhauling of the electoral process and Karan would you believe it? This most important exercise does not figure in that list of 21 things he was proposing to do. So clearly even he did not know that. Therefore, timing causes suspicion.Karan Thapar: In fact, I could point out that the notification by which the special intensive revision is being undertaken was issued on the 24th of June. The exercise began on the 25th of June. There was just 24 hours, or as you put it earlier, maybe just 12 hours lead time to prepare. Clearly the Election Commission and its own machinery couldn’t have been ready in 12 hours for this.Yogendra Yadav: No consultation took place not even with the Election Commission’s own people in Bihar. There’s no consultation, and I believe even within the Election Commission there was no consultation, but that’s a guesswork don’t hold me to that, I don’t have paper proof for that. Even people within the Election Commission were surprised and stunned by this decision because this came as a, from the blue and now, you know Karan, just look at the fiction of it. So on 24th evening, some babu sitting in Delhi passed an order that from tomorrow morning my BLO’s will start, the block level officer, usually a school teacher or an [unclear] worker will start going and start filling forms. Interestingly, the same babu has ordered that this form will be a curated form. On every form, your name, your Epic number, and your previous photograph will be pre-printed. Now, just look at the funny part of it. 4:00 in the evening in Delhi, you issue this order. And you expect that 8:00 in the morning, 10:00 in the morning in Darbanga, you would have printed copies, preprinted copies of these forms with names of every single voter printed separately, and secured a unique form for each voter to be printed. It would have reached the Darbanga. The officer, the school teacher who did not know about this in the evening, has probably heard it on television, would in the morning take those forms, get it filled. What kind of ridiculous things they’re talking about and therefore in reality, Karan, what has happened on ground has nothing to do with the order that the Election Commission has issued. The Wire carried a wonderful article on eight and a half ways in which the Election Commission has circumvented its own orders. That’s what has happened on the ground and that’s what was bound to take place.Karan Thapar: But in fact one can go one step further, Yogendra Yadav. This whole special intensive revision has to be completed in just one month although documents can be presented over a further one month. Given that it affects nearly 8 crore people, can it really be done in such a short time?Yogendra Yadav: That exactly what I said was the question Justice Bakshi asked and the supreme and the Election Commission honestly has no answer. The simple answer is, this exercise was impossible in the course of 1month given that there was no lead time, given that there was no preparation that had taken place. Frankly, for the first 10 days, election commission officials in Bihar were struggling to get the print outs of the forms, a unique form for each voter. They were struggling for the first 10 days, they did not even have forms available to them. And then they have to get, each person has to fill it. Just remember the kind of things that have to be done in the first month. So the fiction of Election Commission says this, that each BLO would have a unique form for each voter in duplicate, the BLO will go to the voter’s house, hand those two forms to them say, ‘You fill these (translated) I’ll come back after a few days’ and then collect one copy and on the second copy the BLO will give them a receipt, you say this is exactly the document I have received from you’, BLO will take it to himself and give their own remarks and then upload it. All this was to happen within one month. In reality, as I said, this was impossible. So, what has happened on the ground is this. Number one, most BLOs have not gone to the homes of the people. People have gone to the homes of BLOs, but that’s a small thing. Number two, duplicate copies have not been given anywhere except in the first few days when duplicate copies were supplied. Election Commission actually stopped giving duplicate copies. They could not print so many things, printing was an issue.Karan Thapar: In fact, Yogendra Yadav it’s even worse. The Hindu reported on the 16th that in parts of Patna enumeration forms are not being handed out by BLO’s but they’re being handed out by, what are described by the paper as, municipal sweepers who are not just handing them out but also collecting them. And when the paper contacted the booth level officer of that part of Patna, a lady called Manju Devi, all she could say is I do not know. And literally a couple of days later, Ajit Anjum has uploaded a video which clearly shows that Patna forms are being uploaded even though voters who allegedly are supposed to have filled them have not filled them and know nothing about them. And yet those forms in their names are being uploaded and when the BLO in this instance was asked what is happening, the BLO also said I know nothing about it. Both those instances, one from ‘The Hindu’, one by Ajit Anjum clearly do not inspire one with confidence.Yogendra Yadav: I’m glad you mentioned Ajit Anjum and this is a moment to salute that Indian journalism is still not dead, that people are going out on the field. It’s not just the story of Patna, across Bihar, Karan, we just held a public hearing the day before yesterday, I was in Patna. We held a public hearing. People from 18 districts of Bihar came to depose before a distinguished panel which included retired justice Anjana Prakash. They deposed. And this complaint that you mentioned was a complaint that comes across from everyone, ‘I did not fill my form but I didn’t know it was filled. I don’t know who signed on my behalf.’ And these are somewhat educated people who know that you can go to the election commission’s website and fill your EPIC card. These are people who said, ‘well five days were left, seven days were left, so I thought let me put my form in and I put my epic card and it says your form has been filled. Thank you very much. Your name would be on the electoral rolls.’ And this is one story you get to. For those who are uneducated who don’t get into this epic form business. You ask them, ‘Have you filled your form? No I haven’t but it was filled for me’ (translated) and Ajit Anjum also showed on video BLO’s signing for voters, you know, which the Election Commission initially disputed but the evidence is just so overwhelming. And I honestly don’t blame these BLO’s. There are as many victims of the situation. When you have this ‘Tuglaki Farman’ from Delhi, what would the poor BLO do except to forge? And I say with all seriousness, Karan and I’m happy to be held accountable for this, no less than one quarter of the forms that have filled in Bihar are fake in that people have not filled it, no one gave them forms, they did not fail it, no one received it from them. All this was paperwork done by BLO sitting at their home.Karan Thapar: Which means that this whole exercise is false.Yogendra Yadav: It is fraudulent. I don’t normally use expressions of this kind and I say with all sense of responsibility. If the whole purpose of this exercise was to clean up and improve the quality of voters, what we have really is something much worse than the previous one because of this forgery that the poor BLOs have been forced to commit. You would have seen these videos, officers shouting at the BLOs. This is what they have been subjected to. And what would you do if someone told you to produce 500 forms by this evening? Would you go to every house and ask them to fill it up or would you sit at home and just keep doing it in order to facilitate all that? The Election Commission said you don’t even need a photograph. So now in order to fill your, if I’m the BLO and if I have to fill Karan Thapar’s form I don’t need anything from Karan Thapar, I don’t need his photograph because that’s been waived. I don’t need to file any documents because that’s been deferred. Karan Thapar: But you need his signature. You need his signature. Yogendra Yadav: Yes. Technically I do need your signature. Legally I do need your signature and that is why so many voters in Bihar are saying, ‘I want to see my signatures. I don’t know who has signed it’ and you know in this country the biggest signature is this. This is your signature. This has been happening right under the nose of the Supreme Court and all this is put on an affidavit to claim that all is well. This is astonishing.Karan Thapar: Let’s come to the last serious concern. Although already I should point out to the audience we have discussed concerns that are so damning that they completely vitiate the exercise. You called it fraudulent. We’ve already established the manner in which the Election Commission has exceeded its bars and defied Gauhati high court rulings. But let’s come nonetheless to the third serious concern. It’s to do with the details that are required from people. Firstly, people born before, sorry, people born after July 1987 are required to provide proof of birth and place of birth. But as you know, Yogendra Yadav, many people don’t have birth certificates. Many were born at home. In fact, the Indian Express quoting the registrar general of India’s data says that as recently as 2007, and I’ll point out that people born in 2007 would be 18 in 2025 and therefore eligible to vote, 75% of people born in 2007 were not registered at birth. How are they going to possibly provide birth certificates? They don’t have them.Yogendra Yadav: Exactly, Karan if you allow me to say that, I’m a son of two teachers, both educated, born in a government hospital, I do not have a birth certificate if you ask me. I’m sure I can dig and find, go to that government hospital ask them to, you know, dig it up and to be fair Justice Dhulia said that in the court of, in the Supreme Court, he said if you ask me for these things I don’t have it, you know, I mean, and the important thing is that you say in 2007 25% births were registered. Interestingly, the birth being registered does not mean that the person who was born or his parents would have a certificate ready at hand. So the actual number is even smaller. The National Family Health Survey, because you know what you can check at the end of persons issuing a certificate but the more relevant thing would be to check at the end of the receiver do you have it, in 2005 National Family Health Survey checked that in Bihar people were asked, ‘do you have this person’s birth certificate?’ 2.8% persons had their birth certificates in hand. This is the state of affairs. Of the 11 documents that the Election Commission of India has asked for, most of these documents are things that people don’t possess. I know the Election Commission in its latest affidavit has given this some astronomical and comical figures but we’ll deal with that in the court of law. All I would do is to present you with very simple evidence. If Election Commission has claimed in the affidavit that these certificates are so easily available, that every household will have, every person should have at least two to three of these certificates, now I present you with a simple thing, for the last one month in Bihar, there is a crazy rush to get cast certificate or domicile certificate. Lakhs of applications have been filed. BMs have officially said we cannot cope with this rush. ‘Sorry, we will not handle these many applications’. Why? If people have these certificates that Election Commission says they do, are they mad to go and try and apply for these certificates? In our [unclear], this woman Asha Devi who came from Araria in Bihar said that she was asked to give her photograph and she was asked for a certificate. She asked around what was the way of getting it. She had to go out and get it. So she sold the ‘rashan ka chaval’ that she had at home. The only thing she had at home, she sold it, got 100 rupees, went to the town, applied for that certificate, which she hasn’t got yet. Incidentally, are they mad to go after these things if people already have these certificates? Do we not know what the certificates the Election Commission is asking for? Passport, government employees ID your documents, bank account details, bank accounts, passbook, etc. If they were dated before 1987, which is infructuous. Your land allotment detail, which is not land ownership, allotment in case the government had allotted some land to you, or your forest rights act in a state which has only 1.3% adiwasi population, where forest right is a non-issue, or NRC that is nonapplicable in the case of Bihar, or cast certificate which again has been measured by scholars and the estimates about a few years ago were that less than 20% people in Bihar have cast certificates or matriculation which was higher which is more in the range of 40-50% for that age group but does it mean, Karan, that effectively so the de facto certificate that you easily can have is matriculation, are we saying you have to be matriculate in order to be a voter in India? And that, as you reminded us, is exactly the manner in which the blacks were disenfranchised in the US.Karan Thapar: Absolutely. And the paradox, if that is the right word, is that when the Supreme Court suggested on the 10th of this month that the Election Commission also permit the use of Aadhaar cards, ration cards and voter cards, the Election Commission in its affidavit of Monday, two days ago, has simply refused to do so. What do you make of that? I mean a suggestion from the Supreme Court that would have eased the burden for tens of millions has been flatly refused by the Election Commission.Yogendra Yadav: On funny grounds. The Election Commission says that we cannot accept Aadhaar because the Aadhaar law says that Aadhaar by itself is not proof of citizenship. Yes sir, you are absolutely right. But matriculation is also not proof of citizenship. A caste certificate is also not a proof of citizenship by itself. None of those 11 documents, except the passport, is a proof of citizenship. So if you can have those 11, why not a 12th?Karan Thapar: The paradox is that you are accepting domicile certificates which are only issued on the basis of having an Aadhaar certificate, and yet the Aadhaar certificate on its own is not permissible.Yogendra Yadav: And to add to that in 2022 an amendment was made to the registration of voters act to allow Aadhaar. And if today, Karan if you today go to Delhi, in Delhi you say okay shift my voter card from that posh area that you live in to this, you know, east Yamuna area where I live Election Commission will say, ‘all right please fill form number six’ and that form number six will ask you to produce your Aadhaar card. So it’s there in the Election Commission’s own routine things. It does still exist on Election Commission statutes. It exists on Election Commission’s rules.Karan Thapar: I want to pursue one more aspect of the details required with you before I end this interview. People born after July ‘87 but up to December 2004 are required to provide proof of birth of one parent. Those born after 2004 December have to provide details of both parents. How many people in Bihar would have these details? I, for example, can’t prove my parents’ birth. I don’t have their birth certificates. Both are dead. Both were born over a century ago. How many people in Bihar can provide these details?Yogendra Yadav: No one. Forget people in Bihar. I mean most people in Delhi, most people in Supreme Court, most judges of the Supreme Court cannot provide you that information. This is how ridiculous the original order was. You’re absolutely right. This is what the order says. Within a week, Election Commission realizes its fault. But they would not amend it. So they issue a press release. I mean, the whole business is being done by press release, not through a formal order. The press release now says, ‘In case your parents figure on the 2003 electoral rolls, then you don’t need to prove the birth and place of birth of your parents.’ So this is a concession given to you, but you still have to prove that your parents were on 2003 electoral rolls. Now put yourself in the shoes or a chapal of a Bihari woman who is married. She is being asked, now her husband is being asked to prove that his father who lives in the same house was on the electoral rolls of 2003. But the wife is being asked to prove that her parents in her [unclear] where she does not know the booth number, in many cases not only has the booth number changed since 2003, even the constituency has changed between 2003 and 2009. So she is being asked to prove that her parents were, so even after this concession it is such a hard task and I saw women crying. Does the Election Commission not think about these things? These are impossible requirements for an ordinary Indian.Karan Thapar: And the amazing thing as The Economic Times has pointed out is that requiring parental proof was not the Election Commission’s practice ever in the past. It says even during Bihar’s last intensive revision in 2002-2003 no parental proof of birth was sought from electors. That’s ‘The Economic Times’ of the 10th. In fact that was also the case when an intensive review was done in Delhi in 2008. Again, no parental proof was required and an official has told the paper this is likely the first time such proof has been mandated. In other words, they’ve created this specifically for Bihar this time around.Yogendra Yadav: That’s the point I was making Karan right in the beginning, that something called special intensive revision has never existed in this country. All other exercises which were intensive revision they did not ask, not only did they not ask parental proof they did not ask for any proof whatsoever. The simple practice has been the practice of presumption. I presume you are an Indian and I would just take a simple paper declaration from you saying I’m a citizen of India etc. in case I have doubt or in case I get a complaint then I would ask you. So in the past no proof, no papers were required at all for this purpose and that is why India’s electoral rolls have been one of the most inclusive documents available in the Indian state, and whenever asked, someone asked me for the list of names for any village I used to say don’t go by any other sarkari list because most sarkari list are very faulty, go by the voters list, voters list is the most comprehensive inclusive list with, many faults, many defects but defects not of exclusion, defects were sometimes of overinclusion. That being so, the comparison between 2003 is completely mistaken. 2003 was nothing of this kind. As a matter of fact, there was really nothing special about 2003 electoral rolls, and to give it suddenly that elevated legal status which you and I did not know, we were voters in 2003 did we know that 2003 voters list was going to be so sacrosanct that if you figure then you are presumed to be Indian citizen if you don’t you are not Indian citizen, did we know that?Karan Thapar: No we didn’t. My last question Yogendra Yadav, what about the estimated 20% of Bihar’s population who are migrant labour? The vast majority of them will not be able to return for this revision and to fulfil the requirements made of them. Now in their case the EC has claimed that it’s opened an app for them. But how many rural laborers and how many construction workers will be able to use this app? And today’s ‘Indian Express’ has a lengthy article about how up to 15-20% of migrant workers in a variety of different constituencies in Bihar will be left off the rolls because they’ve been unable to return and they can’t return because they depend on their daily jobs. They can’t give them up to go back.Yogendra Yadav: Karan, it is ridiculous for anyone to think that these migrant labour who are working in Leh and Ladakh, who are working in Arunachal, who are working in Kerala, working in Faridabad, Delhi, Surat, they would be carrying a smartphone and they would just take that QR code. In fact, I got one of my friends to try and fill that form. They said they found it impossible. These educated people who handle computers every day, found it impossible to fill that form. And these people sitting in some room in Delhi believe that an ordinary Bihariwala worker can fill it. It is worse than a joke. There has been a survey conducted by some professors under the swan network, a network that came in to support migrant workers during covid time. They have just over the last weekend, over this weekend they have conducted a survey of 303 migrant workers from Bihar spread across the country and they just reported in our public hearing that about 20% of migrant workers in different parts of the country have not even heard that something like this is happening. They don’t, they’re not even aware that voters lists are being revised. Half of them have heard about it and somebody at home is taking care. As I said the idea that they would come back home or they would upload the form, make a signature, download, upload, signature, all this is fiction existing in some Babu’s room in Delhi. Nothing of that kind is happening. And those migrant workers who have been able to fill their form is only because someone in their family went to BLO and said, ‘Please fill my brother’s form’ (Translated) but all this is just plain fraudulent activity that is happening. I do not blame those workers. What would you do? Will you come back home? This is not the time when workers of Bihar come home. They come home during Chhath, which is another 2-3 months away. How can they possibly come to do this exercise? All this is worse than a joke. And as all over the world, whenever documentation barriers are raised, it is the disadvantaged who get excluded. This has been a standard trick for disenfranchisement all over the world and I did not know I would live it to a day when I would see this happening in India.Karan Thapar: Yogendra Yadav, we’ve discussed this subject comprehensively. We’ve been into all the concerns and issues in great detail. My very last question, what are the adjectives you would use to describe this situation?Yogendra Yadav: Votebandi is absolutely the correct name for it, because just like notebandi this is an idea that is imposed at a very short notice. Just like notebandi you first do it and then start thinking about it and just like notebandi you first give a medicine and then start looking for the disease which this medicine is likely to cure. You would have noticed that the Election Commission every second day comes up with a new rationale, some fake, some half-truths, ‘duplicate voters will be eliminated’ which has nothing to do with this at all. So it is a classic exercise of that kind. This is one more step in the erasure of democratic practices in this country. This erases the universality of universal adult franchise.Karan Thapar: So it’s an abomination.Yogendra Yadav: You could use stronger adjectives. Your English is much better than mine. Please give me any strong adjectives. But as someone who has lived in this country, as someone who travelled around, used to give lectures holding Indian elections as a kind of a model to the rest of the world, as someone who spoke on behalf of the Election Commission of India on its 50th anniversary to Election Commissioners of at least 50 countries who had gathered in India at that point, and who spoke to them about the virtues and the beauty of the Indian model of election. I can only hang my head in shame.Karan Thapar: Yogendra Yadav, thank you very much for the time you’ve given me and in particular, thank you for analyzing all the different troubling, worrying aspects of this special intensive revision. Take care. Stay safe.