EC’s Bihar voter list revision rekindles citizenship concerns
WHAT is legal may not always be fair. The ‘purification’of electoral rolls is a laudable objective, a legitimate demand and an onerous responsibility. Sukumar Sen, the first Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) withstood pressure for 18 months before conducting the first elections in 1951, only after satisfying himself about the quality of the electoral roll (ER). The present CEC, too, earlier this year, responding to complaints of alleged manipulations and discrepancies in the ERs, assured the nation of corrective steps within 90 days. One such step has brought the Election Commission (EC) in the eye of a storm — one of the several engulfing the institution in recent times, sometimes of its own making.