New Delhi: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has included the functioning of the Election Commission and the Special Intensive
Revision (SIR) exercise in the Class 9 textbook this year. The inclusion of these chapters and the praise for the EC, might just turn into yet another flashpoint between the Central government and the Opposition.
The SIR exercise was launched by the EC, just before the elections in Bihar. According to a report in moneycontrol.com, one of the lines in the new textbook reads, “SIR is aimed at ensuring no eligible citizen is left out and no ineligible person is included in the electoral roll”.
The Opposition meanwhile has all along been against the SIR exercise. They have termed it as a conspiracy of the government in power. They said that this was a deliberate attempt at striking out names of supporters of the Opposition parties.
The NCERT book also says that the EC is an “autonomous body, meant to ensure free and fair elections.” It further praised the Commission saying that the EC works to ensure that “no eligible voters are left out of the electoral rolls.”
The book also praises the SIR exercise saying that it helps ensure removal of names of the deceased voters and thus ensures a clean voters list in all states. The Congress meanwhile, has termed the SIR exercise as a “means of vote theft.”
The book, ‘Understanding Society: India and Beyond’ described India election process as “unparalleled” and was all praise for the EC for managing the electoral process, making electoral rolls and ensuring democratic participation, said a report in NDTV.
Talking about SIR, the book describes it as a special exercise meant to update, verify and correct electoral rolls. It also credits EC for carrying out free and fair elections, carrying out voter awareness campaigns, maintaining Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips and ensuring that the Model Code of Conduct is followed by all parties.
Emergency chapter in NCERT textbooks
Apart from including the EC role and SIR exercise in the textbooks, the NCERT has also added a chapter on the Emergency era in the book. The government said that this would help students make intelligent decisions and prevent the repeat of such “dark deeds.”
The Emergency chapter was included nearly after 50 years of it being imposed, by the Indira Gandhi-led government. It remains to be seen how the Opposition, especially the Congress would react to the inclusion of this topic in the book. The next session of Parliament would surely see some major debates around the new textbooks.
