The Election Commission of India on Saturday stated that nine claims/objections have been filed to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar, with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation) filing two claims yesterday.
During the daily bulletin, the poll body said that 99,656 electors have filed individual claims till now and 7,367 have been disposed of after seven days of submission.
Over 1,60,813 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) across national and state parties can file objections or claims to the draft roll prepared after the enumeration forms were collected as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
BLAs appointed by Political parties can collect Claims (Form 6) from the public & Objections (Form 7) from the public & file objections himself/herself along with the prescribed declaration. As per the bulletin, the Bharatiya Janata Party has the most BLAs (53,338), followed by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (47,506) and the Janata Dal United (36,550).
The ECI has also received 2,83,042 Form 6s, which pertain to the registration of new electors after they are 18 years of age.
The Opposition parties have repeatedly been criticising the Bihar SIR, calling the revision unconstitutional and alleging that voter list manipulation might happen to favour a particular political party.
Opposition Continues Protest Over Bihar SIR
The Opposition had been demanding a discussion on Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision in the Parliament during the Monsoon session. Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi embarked on the 16-day Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar.
Mr Gandhi has alleged the Election Commission of ‘Vote Theft’. However, the poll body rejected the allegations, saying that during the Lok Sabha elections, over one crore employees, more than 10 lakh booth-level agents, and over 20 lakh polling agents of candidates work for the electoral process. In such a transparent process, it would even be possible for any voter to steal votes.
Taking a veiled dig at Rahul Gandhi, the CEC further said it is mandatory to submit a “Constitution oath” as a witness if he is not a voter of the constituency in which the complaint is being made. The Election Commission also asked Rahul Gandhi to either submit an affidavit within seven days or apologise for his allegations.
Following the Supreme Court’s order, the Election Commission has published a list of the 65 lakh voters who were left out of the draft roll published on August 1.
What the Supreme Court has Directed Recently
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed excluded voters to apply for inclusion online in the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar. The court said that they can apply on the basis of Aadhaar or any of the 11 prescribed documents.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision. In a post on X, he said, “Democracy has survived a brutal assault from the Election Commission of India (ECI). On August 14th, the Supreme Court had intervened to set aside the ECI’s decision to withhold the list of deleted voters.”
