NEW DELHI – The Monsoon Session of Parliament has been disrupted again, with both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha being closed for the day because of ongoing demonstrations by the opposition. On the tenth day of the session, members of the opposition kept saying they didn’t like the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)—the changes to the electoral rolls in Bihar.
The opposition has been very clear about how worried they are about the process of updating the voter rolls in the state that is going to the polls. A group of MPs has sent a letter to the Lok Sabha speaker asking for a special discussion on the issue. The letter says that even though the government has said it is open to talking about all topics, there is no set date for the SIR debate.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has started the Special Intensive Revision of electoral records in Bihar to update and clean up the state’s voter list by checking each house. The ECI says that the action is required to get rid of voters who shouldn’t be on the lists and make sure that the rolls are correct before the state elections. However, the opposition says that the process is being used to purposely get rid of real voters from the lists.
The Supreme Court is also involved in the dispute. It is now hearing a number of cases that are challenging the SIR. Petitioners and opposition parties are worried about the validity of the procedure and the possibility that many people would lose their right to vote. The ECI has said in its defense that the draft rolls will be made public on August 1 and that there will be a claims and complaints process until September 1, during which real voters can be added back to the list.
The government and opposition had already agreed to have a special discussion about “Operation Sindoor” and the Pahalgam terror incident, but the topic of the Bihar voter roll revision has been a constant source of disagreement, causing both houses of Parliament to be interrupted over and over again.