Hello,
If there were ever an award for the most flip-flops on a subject as important as elections, the Election Commission of India may find itself among the top contenders.
In our recent story, we exposed that ECI’s top officer in West Bengal, the Chief Electoral Officer, was sending instructions to state officials through informal channels.
Our latest investigation reveals that the ECI claimed that, in West Bengal, notices to prove citizenship, identity, and voting rights were sent only after assembly-level officials carefully reviewed each case but, in reality, over 1.5 crore notices were produced by the Commission’s centralised, flawed, and untested algorithms.
For this latest investigation, The Reporters’ Collective went to West Bengal to experience the mess that the SIR has created in the eastern Indian State. What has left West Bengal officials in a soup is that they have only about 20 days to conduct hearings for 1.5 crore people to determine their voting rights.
The shocking part is that the ECI even misled the Supreme Court of India, before which it had claimed that there is “no automated generation of notices”, while our investigation reveals that the notices were generated en masse by centralised and untested algorithms.
Read our latest investigation here: ECI misled the Supreme Court on SIR in West Bengal
For the past few months, under our Electoral Roll Project, we have consistently highlighted the whims and fancies on which SIR is being conducted without proper rules and regulations.
We owe it to our friends and supporters, such as you, who made these investigations possible with your resources and ideas. Please continue to read our work and support us.
Regards,
Mayank Aggarwal
Editor
The Reporters’ Collective