SIR can pave the way for the “democracy of the few”, says Parakala Prabhakar

Economist Parkala Prabhakar delivers the PV Narasimha Rao Memorial Lecture at the BR Ambedkar Open University in Hyderabad on Thursday. | Photo credit: RAMAKRISHNA G

“The Special Intensive Review (SIR) will create two classes of citizens – those who can vote and those who cannot. At the current rate, an estimated 16 million people could be disenfranchised. The SIR is effectively excluding parts of the country from the democratic process,” economist and political commentator Parakala Prabhakar Amber said at the PV Memorial Open Narasimha Lecture at Hyamorial Lec Rao University. on Thursday.

According to him, political parties look at the removal of names from electoral lists only through the lens of electoral gains and losses. “They worry if those who are removed are supporters of one party or the other. But in the long run, all political parties will be ‘BJPised’. They will increasingly remind the BJP how the polity is being reshaped to make sections of society politically irrelevant,” he said.

On a special intensive review with the proposed delimitation exercise, Mr. Prabhakar said that minorities, dalits, adivasis and economically weaker groups are at risk of being pushed out of the democratic process. “The result will be a democracy of the few,” he said. Citing responses obtained under the Right to Information Act, he alleged that the SIR was planned and implemented in a non-transparent manner without enough material being publicly available to justify the exercise.

“Delimitation will shape Hindu majority consolidation and create Hindu savarnas as it will not be the last SIR,” he said. “Every abnormality will be normalised. Rising dollar, petrol prices, Manipur, lynching, paper leaks, NEET, unemployment and now SIR and removal of names from electoral rolls, all will be normalised. Minorities will be politically insignificant,” he said. He also claimed that India was on its way to becoming “a country like Israel.

On the question of the fairness of elections in West Bengal, Mr. Prabhakar said that about 28 million voters were allegedly struck off the electoral rolls and that many of these cases were still pending before the tribunals.

Earlier, Ghanta Chakrapani, Vice-Chancellor of BRAOU, said, “The Election Commission has deployed its army to remove a section of people from the electoral rolls. This is an inversion of democracy where the rulers decide who will be the voters.”

Published – 02 Jul 2026 20:40 IST