Hyderabad, Nov. 3 -- Economist and political commentator Parakala Prabhakar has been among the sharpest critics of the Election Commission of India's (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which he has called a "bloodless political genocide." Prabhakar, who is married to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, wants the exercise scrapped and the ECI disbanded and rebuilt.

He spoke to Siasat.com's Osama Salman over the phone on Sunday, November 1, a day after a civil society public hearing on the SIR in Hyderabad. The revision has no legal sanction, he argued, though the Supreme Court upheld the ECI's power to conduct it in its May 27 judgment.

He also spoke about the Supreme Court, the Opposition's response and wh...