Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) SY Quraishi has hit out at the Election Commission over the ongoing SIR exercise, saying the process “is focussed more on exclusion and has played havoc with democracy with free and fair elections having been disturbed”.The emphasis in the ongoing process of the SIR of electoral rolls was on how many to exclude as if the Election Commission (EC) would get good marks for “throwing out” as many as it could, Quraishi said ahead of the launch of his new book “India and I: A Hundred Memories, Not a Memoir”.Quraishi said being registered as a voter was a constitutional right but a situation was being created that it was a favour granted to people by the EC. The ongoing SIR process was “unfair” because of the way this was being done, he said.The process is focusing more on “exclusion”, Quraishi said. “In our time it was a very clear policy. Our instruction to the polling staff used to be that if somebody comes introducing himself or herself and there was some minor error in the spelling, age or address or something, but you know that the person is the right person, ignore all mistakes. So that no voter is excluded,” he asserted.Here the emphasis was on how many to exclude, Quraishi said, slamming the EC. “It has really played havoc with democracy, free and fair elections have been disturbed and that is something the nation should be concerned about and it is, which is why this controversy is there,” Quraishi, who was the CEC from July 30, 2010 till June 10, 2012, said.“In 2002-2003, in Bihar, after the last intensive revision, the decision was taken that the intensive revision is no longer necessary because the rolls have been computerised. Now if your name is there and 99 per cent names are already there and then I go to a home and start finding from scratch who lived in that house, that is foolish,” he said.Therefore, Quraishi said the decision was taken that there will only be a summary revision. It means officials go to a person’s house, show the electoral roll, show the voters’ names, ages and if everything is fine they move on to the next house, he said. “If not, if some voter has been added, the BLO will give you a form, form six, fill up the form and within seven days it will get added. Or if you need to delete somebody who has moved or somebody has died, you will fill form seven,” he said.All this was all done on the spot, with the result that 99% roll had become perfect as a result of the annual exercise, Quraishi pointed out.