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Articles and discussions related to the SIR exercise.
While no one denies the importance of SIR exercise, the question of proper design and implementation of an exercise of such humongous scale have been neglected from the outset, resulting in mass disenfranchisement
Source: Anandabazar.com (Bengali)
Authors: Nandita Roy
Being a privileged Professor at a top central institution and the daughter of an Air Force veteran means nothing when you are suddenly disenfranchised
Source: The Wire
Authors: Nandita Roy
SIR has the potential to induce further religious polarization in the already fractionalized West Bengal electorate, and it is unclear exactly who will benefit.
Source: Eisamay.com (Bengali)
Authors: Supriyo Basu, Biswajit Prasad
While the Supreme Court has reprimanded the West Bengal State Government for the Kaliachak incident, it overlooked the role and responsibility of the Election Commission.
Source: Eisamay.com (Bengali)
Author: Angshuman Kar
The SIR process is necessary. But a mechanistic application is antithetical to the idea of universal franchise, and will disenfranchise millions of the underprivileged.
Source: Eisamay.com (Bengali)
Author: Anirban Mukherjee
The Alt News investigation argues that the Election Commission effectively created a “wall” around electoral roll data—through inaccessible formats and restrictions—making large-scale scrutiny difficult, which journalists then had to manually overcome to reveal patterns within the SIR process.
Source: Altnews.com
Author: Ankit Jain
SIR in West Bengal is not only an instrument for mass disenfranchisement, it is also a conduit for including dubious voters.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Suman Sengupta
SIR in India has a deep parallel with the hunt for the undocumented in American politics.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: NA
The article summarises the findings of the Lokniti-CSDS survey regarding possession of documents in the context of the SIR exercise, and finds that voter verification may lead to significant disenfranchisement among the poor, elderly, illeterate, migrant and rural voters.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Bangla Gabeshana Kendra
In this two part exercise, it is shown that there have been systematically more deletions in constituencies where the BJP had lost by larger margins.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Bangla Gabeshana Kendra
The authors find evidence of group-targeted deletions in West Bengal but not in Tamil Nadu, explaining why resistance happened only in West Bengal.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Bangla Gabeshana Kendra
The authors describe the difficulties and challenges in accessing and analyzing the ECI updated voter list of the high profile Bhabanipur Assembly Constituency and describe building custom tools and methods to extract and classify voter data, and finds a possible bias against Muslims in the process.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Bangla Gabeshana Kendra
In the closing instalment of the three part series, the author shows that the deletions in SIR seems to have no connection with population growth of Muslims, a possible proxy for “infiltration”.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Anirban Mukherjee
In the second instalment of the three part series, the author shows that the higher likelihood of deletions in constituencies with higher Muslim population happened only in the second phase of SIR.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Anirban Mukherjee
In the first instalment of a three part series, using two extensive databases of Muslim names, deletion rates are found to be statistically higher in districts with high share of Muslim population.
Source: Guruchandali.com (Bengali)
Author: Anirban Mukherjee
The author draws parallels between the sudden, widespread hardships faced by citizens during the demonetization and the COVID-19 lockdown with the ongoing SIR process, arguing that similar patterns of state-induced distress are being repeated.
Source: Anandabazar.com
Author: Anirban Mukherjee