New Delhi: Amid the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories, civil society organisations came together on Saturday at a national convention to demand that the exercise in its present form be stopped, voter list revision process be delinked from determination of citizenship and those whose names have been struck off during this process be restored.The convention titled “No-SIR, National Convention on Defending Universal Adult Franchise” organised by the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, People’s’ Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) and National Alliance for Peoples’ Movement (NAPM) was held in the form of a public hearing on Saturday (December 20) in New Delhi. A panel including former Supreme Court judges Madan B. Lokur, Justice A.K. Patnaik, academics Professor Nivedita Menon, economist Jean Dreze and journalist Pamela Philipose heard testimonies of those affected by the exercise. The jury expressed “deep reservations about the manner, method and motivation behind the entire SIR exercise.”The convention has said in its declaration that the universality of the universal adult franchise is being challenged, with the Election Commission of India (ECI) having weaponised a “seemingly routine administrative exercise into an unprecedented and sweeping rewriting of the rules of who can be a voter.”It has demanded that the SIR in its present form must be stopped; all electors whose names have been excluded from the electoral rolls during the SIR, without due process, must be restored. It also demanded that a revision of voters list must be completely delinked from determination of citizenship; those on the pre-existing electoral rolls must be presumed to be citizens, unless someone proves otherwise.“The time tested method of house-to-house visit and verification of electoral rolls combined with de-duplication software etc. should be used for regular revisions; new voters must not be required to furnish documents that ordinary citizens do not possess and all electoral rolls, past and present, must be placed in the public domain in machine-readable and searchable format.”=During the public hearing, 16 teams from 10 states provided testimonies. Members of the Madari community from Jaipur – who have been nomadic entertainers for generations, conducting street shows – said at the public hearing that they have been left out of the exercise as they don’t have documents to show permanent addresses. Attendees at the convention held in New Delhi. Photo: X/@_YogendraYadavJitni Devi from Bihar’s Phulwari Sharif through a video testimony said that she was declared dead during the SIR, despite being on the electoral rolls in the January 2025 summary revision.“When we reached her village at the end of August following the publication of the draft voter list, we found that her widow pension had been stopped as her name had been deleted from the voter list,” said Sarfaraz, PUCL member, who had brought her testimony.In her testimony, Jitni Devi said that despite having an Aadhaar card, her pension has been stopped since she has been declared dead in the voter list.Activists from Chhattisgarh said in the public hearing that villagers who had been displaced in Bastar during the action against Salwa Judum had also been left out of the SIR and had not been enumerated.Family members of a Booth Level Officer in Jaipur who died by suicide also spoke about the immense pressure under which the exercise is being conducted, and questioned the haste with which the revision is being carried out.During the hearing, Yogendra Yadav from the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan said that the SIR has resulted in the government now “choosing its people.”“Earlier the people would choose the government, now the government chooses the people,” he said.Justice Lokur said that the ECI must take people into confidence at every stage of the exercise. “BLOs should conduct the exercise very carefully. If this exercise takes time, let it. After all, the voter is most important, not the EC or the system. People need to be taken into confidence. They have come here and said that they have not been heard. If the commission listens to their problems, the people and the EC will benefit,” he said.Justice Patnaik said that the poll body should have been part of the hearing to listen to the people’s woes. “Ill effects of SIR would not stop merely with mass disenfranchisement,” he said, adding that the electoral rolls may now be linked to the Aadhaar database, leading to disentitlement of the citizen from various welfare schemes.In her remarks, Menon also questioned the motives of the SIR and whether the errors of the exercise “were a part of the design to punish marginalised sections of society, particularly the minorities.”