NBCC urges transparent, inclusive SIR in Nagaland, warning against wrongful voter deletions and stressing safeguards for eligible citizens
DIMAPUR — The Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) has called for a transparent and inclusive revision of electoral rolls, cautioning that the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) must not result in the wrongful exclusion of eligible voters.
The church body, while welcoming efforts to make elections “clean, credible and transparent”, asserted that the integrity of electoral rolls should be measured not only by the removal of ineligible names but also by how effectively eligible citizens are protected from wrongful deletion.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the NBCC said that Nagaland’s distinctive social and customary context could pose challenges during the revision process. It pointed to village-based communities, customary institutions, clan relationships and traditional landholding, suggesting that some families may not possess records that fit neatly into modern bureaucratic categories.
“A rigid documentation-based approach” could therefore disadvantage genuine indigenous voters, it cautioned.
The NBCC also highlighted the movement of residents for education, employment, government service and other reasons, as well as migration to urban centres such as Dimapur and Kohima. It stated that determining whether a person has shifted residence, is temporarily absent or remains ordinarily resident could be complicated, potentially resulting in the deletion of genuine voters.
Also read: Dimapur Naga Students' Union to conduct periodic visits to government offices
It urged the administrative machinery to take a proactive role in the process and warned that electoral irregularities could range from administrative errors to deliberate voter suppression and fraud.
The council also called upon booth level officers and village authorities to exercise care in maintaining electoral rolls, describing them as crucial to ensuring a clean and credible electoral process.
At the same time, it appealed to families to remove the names of deceased and otherwise ineligible persons from electoral rolls, urging them to choose “truth over manipulation” and “conscience over political gain”.
The NBCC asked voters to remain vigilant against wrongful deletion, exclusion, intimidation or manipulation. It maintained that while accuracy and timely completion are important, excessive pressure on field-level officials could increase errors in enumeration and verification.
“An intensive revision should not become an intensive exclusion,” the council stated, calling for the SIR process in Nagaland to be careful, inclusive, transparent, non-discriminatory and rights-protective, given the state’s sensitivities surrounding identity, indigenous rights, migration and historical records.