Dawn correspondent says 130 million names removed from voter rolls

A Dawn correspondent in Delhi said that India’s election commission had removed 130 million names from voter rolls over the past nine months. In an opinion column, he linked the revision of the registers to the authorities’ actions and stated that this restricts the voting rights of millions of people.

Allegations against the election commission

The author writes that the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, allegedly exerts influence on the three-member election commission in order to deregister millions of voters. In his view, the purpose of such actions may be to secure victories for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in state elections.

According to the correspondent, protest participants accuse the election commission of manipulating voter rolls which, in their view, affected voting results, including in the states of Bihar and West Bengal. The column notes that the protests are attended primarily by students and unemployed young people.

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Protests in Delhi

The article mentions rallies at Jantar Mantar in Delhi in the context of criticism of the revision of voter registers. The author also expressed the opinion that elites can influence electoral processes through legislative mechanisms, regulatory bodies, campaign financing, the media, and the spread of disinformation.

The material is an opinion political column: the correspondent draws parallels between the situation in India, the United States, and Israel and assesses these processes as a weakening of democratic institutions.