Mumbai, India – A move by India’s top election body, the Election Commission of India (ECI), to re-scrutinise nearly 80 million voters’ documents in a bid to weed out “foreign illegal immigrants” has prompted widespread fears of mass disenfranchisement and deportations in the world’s largest democracy.On June 24, the ECI announced that each of the nearly 80 million voters – equivalent to the entire population of the United Kingdom – in the eastern Indian state of Bihar will need to re-register as voters by July 26.
Those unable to do so will lose their right to vote and will be reported as “suspected foreign nationals”, as per the ECI directive and could even face jail or deportation. The state’s legislative elections are expected to be held in October or November.
Critics say the move is a backdoor route to implement the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has proposed in the past as a way to identify “illegal immigrants” and deport them.
The move comes at a time when thousands of largely Bengali-speaking Muslims have been rounded up, and many of them have been deported from India as alleged Bangladeshi immigrants in the last few weeks.
Al Jazeera sent questions to the ECI about the move, but the commi …
