New Delhi/Patna: Raising sharp concerns over India’s electoral process, Kamal Haasan on Thusrady warned Parliament that flaws in voter list revisions risk undermining the right to vote, citing Bihar as a cautionary example.
Participating in the motion of thanks on President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament, Haasan focused on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that its implementation in Bihar had exposed serious administrative failures. Voters, he said, were being denied their franchise over minor spelling errors or address discrepancies for which they were not responsible.
Referring to reported cases from Bihar, Haasan told the Rajya Sabha that living citizens had been declared dead and struck off electoral rolls during the revision exercise. “Bihar has become a land of many living dead,” he said, warning that such practices posed a grave threat if replicated elsewhere.
The actor-politician accused the Election Commission of India of failing to curb these errors, arguing instead that the system appeared to legitimise them. Describing the SIR process as a “spell-check story of the living dead”, he said rigid scrutiny in a linguistically diverse country ran contrary to the spirit of democracy.
Haasan, founder of the Makkal Needhi Maiam party, cautioned that if similar revisions were carried out in Tamil Nadu, nearly one crore voters could be disenfranchised on paper alone. He demanded that names removed due to administrative lapses be restored without delay.
His remarks drew applause from opposition benches, with RJD MP Manoj Jha publicly expressing support. Haasan concluded by reminding the House that democracy was not merely about electoral victories but about a continuous process rooted in respect for citizens’ rights.
