New Delhi: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), meant to be an exercise to “purify” electoral rolls of absent, shifted, deceased and duplicate voters, is now moving to serve as a unit to determine welfare beneficiaries under the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) state governments in West Bengal and Bihar. The move, even as questions on the legality of the SIR are pending in the Supreme Court, has raised questions on whether electoral rolls can serve as a determinant of citizenship, and whether they can be used to deny welfare benefits. “Voter lists are for the limited purpose of voting. If the sweep of the list is extended beyond that, it can result in chaos. The eligibility criterion for inclusion in a voter list is different from eligibility for welfare benefits. If the extension is permitted, exclusion can then be extended to issuance of a driving licence, opening a bank account and so on. It could even extend to employment. There would be no end to this absurd situation,” said Justice Madan B. Lokur, former judge in the Supreme Court.Yet in the two states where the BJP has installed its chief ministers for the first time, the new governments are proceeding to use these very voter lists as a unit of determination of welfare beneficiaries.Days after forming the government in West Bengal, the BJP’s first chief minister in the state Suvendu Adhikari, in his first cabinet meeting, moved to reorder beneficiaries of welfare schemes. While saying that schemes from the previous Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government would continue, those excluded during the SIR will be left out.On May 19, the West Bengal government issued a notification for the Annapurna Yojana scheme, which has replaced the former TMC government’s flagship scheme for cash transfer to women known as Lakshmir Bhandar. The notification stated that while women would receive Rs 3,000 instead of the earlier Rs 1,500 through direct benefit transfer, those who have been struck off the rolls in the SIR exercise, will not remain beneficiaries, while those who have applied under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and are awaiting tribunal adjudication of their deletions from the voter rolls will be eligible.Also read: Backstory: No Media Questions, Please, We Are a Beautiful CountryIn neighbouring Bihar, the BJP’s first chief minister in the state, Samrat Choudhary, too has announced that those excluded in the SIR will not be entitled to any government benefits “including ration” and bank passbooks too will be cancelled in “due course of time”, though an official notification is yet to be issued.Following the contentious electoral revision exercise in West Bengal, the electorate had nearly 89 lakh fewer voters than before the process, while Bihar now has nearly 47 lakh fewer voters. In both states, the BJP led aggressive poll campaigns driven around the SIR, to weed out alleged illegal immigrants. The Election Commission of India however, is yet to provide a figure of how many foreigners were found on the rolls following the electoral roll revision. ‘Worst fear coming true’Questions had been raised when the SIR was first announced in Bihar last year, that the exercise is bringing in the NRC through the backdoor, and will result in not only disenfranchisement but also largescale exclusion of the poor. “In many ways this is some of our worst fears coming true,” said transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj associated with Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information.“While the Election Commission, through the SIR, was saying that we are checking citizenship because only citizens are allowed to vote, and therefore all this documentary proof is required, the fear has always been that the SIR will impact the most marginalised in the most grievous manner-women, religious minorities, Dalits, Adivasis-they are the ones who have problems with access to documents. There has always been this worry that SIR will lead to their exclusion.“There has also been the anxiety that once someone is taken off the voter list, other rights and entitlements that accrue to them might come under question, which is why we saw people queuing up documents in hand to ensure they were included in the rolls. Now, in some senses, this is our worst fear coming true,” she said.While the electoral roll in Bihar shrunk by about 6% following the SIR, in West Bengal the electorate decreased by about 12%. Further, about 27 lakh voters whose appeals were pending adjudication in judicial tribunals, were unable to cast their vote. While the government in West Bengal has in its notification for the Annapurna Yojana said, that those pending appeals and those who have applied for CAA will be eligible, the “logical discrepancy” category under which voters were struck off due to name mismatches and spelling errors has cast a shadow on the whole exercise. In Bihar, on the other hand, chief minister Choudhary has said to The Indian Express that those deleted in the SIR “will not be entitled to any government benefits, including ration and other welfare schemes.” He also added that bank passbooks of those deleted would also be cancelled in “due course of time.” Bihar food and consumer protection minister Ashok Choudhary. Photo: X/@AshokChoudhaary.Bihar food and consumer protection minister Ashok Choudhary has further questioned how those not eligible under SIR can get government benefits.“How will those who were not eligible in the SIR get government benefits? Those who do not exist, how can they get ration? This is obvious. If they have made their voter list in Delhi or Tamil Nadu, how can they get services here?” he said.While in January, the Supreme Court reserved its judgement on the legality of the SIR, Bhardwaj questioned what would happen to those who were struck off welfare programmes on account of this exercise if the court was to hold the exercise unconstitutional.“An economic crisis is looming, fuel prices, gas cylinder prices are rising. In such a scenario to deny people rations is completely disastrous. The right to food for instance flows from the right to life under Article 21, which is guaranteed not just to citizens but to people. For the state to take such measures, and tell people they will not be given rations falls foul of Article 21. So at many levels what is happening is extremely problematic in any democracy,” she said.Questions are also being raised about the intention of these decisions, which go against natural justice.“If these decisions are implemented, it will adversely and unfairly impact the poor who are already facing all kinds of problems. Prima facie, such an action would be unconstitutional and against natural justice. What is the intention behind extending the reach of the voter card?” said Lokur.‘Illegal immigrant’ bogeyWhen the Election Commission first announced the SIR in Bihar, its press statement had said the exercise was necessitated due to various reasons including “rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants”. However, its SIR order dated June 24 cited only “rapid urbanisation, frequent migration” as reasons warranting an intensive verification drive. The Supreme Court during the hearing in January too had questioned the Election Commission for failing to cite “illegal immigration” in that order. The poll body then submitted that the term “migration” subsumes both inter-state and trans-border movement. Following the exercise in Bihar, the Election Commission did not provide any details about the number of foreign “illegal immigrants” found on the rolls. Yet the BJP used the spectre of illegal immigrants in its campaign in Bihar and then West Bengal. Union home minister Amit Shah too defended the SIR in parliament and said that it was the NDA government’s policy “detect, delete and deport”. The Wire has reported that the term Special Intensive Revision is not in the Election Commission’s rule books, and even during the hearing in the Supreme Court, the poll body has said that the SIR seeks to not determine but only “verify” citizenship. “SIR is limited to the purification of electoral rolls. Governments going to the Election Commission for proof of citizenship has never been the case,” said former chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat. “There are many government schemes where citizenship is not a criteria and you cannot deny those benefits like bank accounts, employment (under MGNREGA), on this ground. Only where explicitly citizenship is essential qualification to get those benefits you can deny and then for that also you cannot ask the Election Commission’s certificate, as it is the home ministry that determines citizenship. This is something which will have to be reviewed by courts if state governments continue this.”‘Illegal,’ ‘To Overreach the Supreme Court’According to legal experts, using the voter list simply serves the limited purpose of voting and extending its reach is illegal.“Voter lists are for the limited purpose of voting. If the sweep of the list is extended beyond that, it can result in chaos,” said Lokur. “The eligibility criterion for inclusion in a voter list is different from eligibility for welfare benefits. If the extension is permitted, exclusion can then be extended to issuance of a driving licence, opening a bank account and so on. It could even extend to employment. There would be no end to this absurd situation.”Former Madras high court judge Justice K. Chandru said that the two governments actions are “illegal” and meant to act as a psychological threat.“SIR has nothing to do with welfare schemes. The action taken by the two governments is completely illegal,” he said. “If I have a ration card, I will have to be given ration. Further each scheme works differently- like 100-day employment that is under a separate act. Family ration is again a separate government order. In the case of those whose appeals are pending for instance (in West Bengal), ultimately their appeals may take time that is not the issue. But the government is bound to provide ration on the basis of existing identity cards. As long as I have an Aadhaar card I am eligible for government schemes. The government is at present going beyond its limits.”While the Election Commission is not empowered to decide citizenship, which remains in the home ministry’s domain, the very design of the SIR has served to determine citizenship. With the legal question yet to be settled, the state governments have sought to move ahead.“The intention appears to be to overreach the Supreme Court. This is most unfortunate. I think the Supreme Court should come down with a sledge hammer. The voter list is not an identity card for anything, except voting,” said Lokur.“The ECI cannot decide citizenship, but that is what the SIR is being used for, unfortunately. The Constitution does not confer arbitrary powers on the ECI or any institution for that matter. Everybody must follow the Constitution, constitutional morality and the rule of law, if we are to avoid anarchy.”In a bid to show that the party is following through on its poll promise, the BJP governments in the two states have swiftly moved forward to use the SIR exclusions as a standard of reference. During the poll campaign in West Bengal last month, Bihar chief minister Chaudhary said that 22 lakh ration cards have already been cancelled following the SIR.“SIR was done in Bihar. SIR clearly shows that those who are illegal immigrants, they have to be thrown out. We have excluded 22 lakh people and cancelled their ration as well. In future we will also cancel everything from their driving licenses to each and every one of their cards,” he said.In West Bengal the Adhikari government has handed over land to the BSF for border fencing, reordered welfare beneficiaries, and announced that alleged infiltrators would be handed over to the BSF instead of being produced in court.“The present mode of operation is just a psychological threat over people who did not vote. One is fencing the border. Second is denying the welfare scheme. Third is the threat of throwing them out without inquiry. This is planned to terrorise people reminiscent of the pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany,” said Chandru.