Justice Bhuyan warns mass voter removal threatens India's constitutional core
Justice Ujjal Bhuyan said eliminating voting rights for millions would undermine the Constitution, criticizing the Election Commission's SIR exercise.
At an event hosted by NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan cautioned that stripping millions of Indians of the franchise would violate the Constitution’s core principles of adult suffrage and equality. He linked the right to vote to Articles 326 and 14, emphasizing that the Constitution makes no distinction between citizens with or without voting rights. Bhuyan asserted that no court or agency can endorse a process that effectively disenfranchises large populations, calling such actions a negation of constitutional order.
His comments target the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has excluded 4,756,000 names in Delhi and flagged additional voters for discrepancies, while in West Bengal thousands have been deleted or appealed. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh echoed the criticism, accusing the Chief Election Commissioner of constitutional breach. The Election Commission maintains that its procedures are lawful.
Why it matters
Mass removal of voters could erode democratic participation and constitutional guarantees in India.
How the sides frame it
HIGH AGREEMENTAll camps uniformly portray the SIR voter purge as unconstitutional and arbitrary, stressing its threat to voting rights.
LEFT
Left-leaning coverage frames the SIR purge as creating second-class citizens and being intrinsically arbitrary, a direct violation of constitutional equality.
CENTER
Center coverage frames the purge as a violation of Articles 326 and 14, endangering democracy and constituting illegal disenfranchisement.
The left emphasises
- “intrinsically arbitrary”
- creates “second-class citizens”
- a “negation of the constitutional order”
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