A LANDLOCKED region comprising Purnia, Katihar, Kishanganj, Supaul and Araria districts, the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal ranks the lowest on almost all development indices in Bihar. Around this time of the year, its foremost concern is the weather, with the rains bringing annual floods and distress.
This time, there is another concern weighing Seemanchal down – the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, which requires voters to produce documents that few here own, or know how to go about procuring.
With the poor and marginalised likely to be the most affected by the EC drive, as the only official documents most of them hold are not valid for enrolment, political parties based in Seemanchal have taken the lead in slamming the poll panel.
Purnia MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, an Independent, has told people “not to cooperate with BLOs”, the Booth Level Officers conducting the revision exercise on the ground. In Katihar, the CPI (ML-Liberation) MLA from Barsoi, Mehboob Alam, has also told voters in his constituency “not to entertain BLOs” till he tells them to do so.
With both Pappu Yadav and the CPI (ML-Liberation) allies of the RJD, its national vice-president Shivanand Tiwari tells The Indian Express: “We all need to resist this tooth and nail.”
Tiwari puts Seemanchal, where Muslims form over 40% of the population in four districts (with their numbers over 70% in Kishanganj), as “central to the debate” around the EC move, which comes just ahead of the Assembly elections. The fact that Seemanchal borders West Bengal and Nepal, with Bangladesh not far away – inviting claims of illegal immigration – adds another dimension to the issue, the RJD leader adds.
Calling the EC drive part of “a sinister design to implement the RSS agenda”, Tiwari says it cannot be used to weed out illegal migrants, as “the Centre has no data or wherewithal” for it.
The 11 documents the EC wants from those who don’t figure in the 2003 electoral rolls (when the EC says it carried out its last Special Intensive Revision) are akin to seeking proof of citizenship.
Among those hoping for clarity is Pranuffinisa Khatoon. The 37-year-old still wears her sari “the Bengali way”, but for years now, life for her has meant tilling the fields of her landlord at Rampur Kothi Ghat village in Purnia. For 15 of those years, she says, she has been a registered voter in Bihar.
Aware of the new EC requirement for those who do not feature in the 2003 electoral rolls, Khatoon has applied for a domicile certificate. She has heard it requires only an Aadhaar card, which she possesses. But as no BLOs have made their way to Rampur Kothi Ghat yet, she is not sure.
Khatoon and members of about 20 families like her in the village are also unsure about whether they will get the certificates on time to complete the process, even though departments have been told to expedite the issue of certificates needed for the EC exercise.
As per the EC deadline, a draft electoral roll, based on the new enumeration forms, is to be readied by August 1.
“If Aadhaar, PAN, MNREGS cards don’t count among the 11 documents the EC wants for enrolment, why were they issued in the first place,” asks Mohammed Afsar Ali, a daily wager in Dhamdaha, in another part of Purnia.
At Jamunigarhi village in Kishanganj, Shariq, 42, also a daily wager, says he is in the clear as his name is in the 2003 voters’ list. However, for his two brothers, both born after 1987, the family hopes to procure domicile certificates. These certificates normally take 15 days, Shariq says. “The BLOs have not told us anything so far.”
“Shaken” by the EC’s drive, an agitated Shariq says all of them voted as recently as last year’s Lok Sabha polls. “This is the NRC (National Register of Citizens) via the backdoor, with the EC playing proxy for the Centre,” he says.
However, his aggression soon gives way to resignation. “What can we do if our names are cut from the electoral rolls? What will we do?”
Kishanganj district Congress president Ali Imam Chintu says there are no BLOs around to address people’s concerns. “We are hitting the streets. This revision must be withdrawn as it lacks transparency.”
BLO Naushad Ahmad is among those collecting enrolment forms at Ward No. 4 of Nagar Panchayat in Bahadurganj in Kishanganj district. All around are people waving their Aadhaar cards at him, and Ahmad’s irritation rises as he keeps repeating that they are not valid. “Get a domicile certificate fast,” he tells those in the queue.
Ahmad admits he is racing against time. “Of the 1,456 voters in this booth, I have been able to upload filled-up forms of only 20 as the word of the EC exercise has reached late and people are yet to realise the importance of the exercise. The relatives of over 20% of the voters who do not live in the village are the most worried about how they would get enrolled.”
Rosy Begum, 25, says her husband Badruddin works in Russia and “comes back to the village during the elections”. The BLO tells her he has the option to apply online, but Rosy doesn’t look too reassured.
Over 60 km away, in Hardar village in Araria, the news of the EC revision has barely reached. Once, Araria carried weight in Bihar politics for being the turf of the late RJD leader Mohammed Taslimuddin, but now it ranks low in the priority list.
Mohammed Shamim, 40, a madrasa teacher, says no one he knows has been approached by a BLO so far. “We do not know what to do. We only have Aadhaar cards.”
Mohammed Yasin says he never got birth certificates made of his two sons. “We are anxious about what would happen if we lose our votes,” he says, wondering about “the government’s intentions”.
Requesting anonymity, at least three BLOs in Purnia, Araria and Kishanganj districts say that even if it is an exercise to remove illegal voters, very little planning appears to have gone into it. “The process of revision will leave out a fair number of voters, genuine or otherwise,” says one of them.
The Mahagathbandhan has given a call for Bihar Bandh on July 9 on the issue. But fear that their voters may find themselves unable to vote has also left unease in NDA ranks.
While JD(U) and Lok Janshakti Party workers talk of a “negative fallout” in private, Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) chief Upendra Kushwaha has said publicly that the EC must address “people’s concerns and apprehensions”.
In the Kasba and Dhamdaha blocks of Purnia district, close to the Bengal border, Bengali is spoken commonly, besides the local Surjapuri dialect.
At Mallik Rampur village here, Mohammed Naushad, 21, who takes up odd jobs for a living, says he has no papers to show, and is done caring. “Koi kaagaz nahin hain. Zyada se zyada kya hoga, Bangladesh bhej dega (I have no papers. What is the worst that can happen? They will send me to Bangladesh),” he says.
As the elders around him try to reassure him, Mohammed Yusuf, sitting some distance away, says the EC’s move has changed the political discourse. “People were discussing Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad or Prashant Kishor all these days. Now we are discussing if we are voters or not.”
The joy of Mohammed Shamsher, 60, a daily wager at Idgah Chowk, among the few to have procured an enrolment form, proves short-lived as he realises that neither Aadhaar, nor his bank passbook or MNREGS card can help him fill it. “I have no other papers, no domicile certificate. Everyone asks for bribes to issue these papers,” Shamsher says. “We are better off without voting.”
In Khataghat village in another part of the district, Mohammed Rizwan, 25, has decided to take matters in his own hands. He has been sharing all information received on the exercise on a WhatsApp group of their Shersabadi community. “We know the power of our vote, and want to ensure genuine voters don’t get left out.”
