Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar claimed the central poll panel has been holding regular parleys with the opposition parties over the special intensified review in poll-bound Bihar.
“The Election Commission keeps having regular dialogue with various political parties. In the last four months, all party meetings were organized in every assembly constituency, in every district and also with every state chief electoral officer,” Kumar told media persons on the sides of an event in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad.
Kumar’s claims were made on the same day when the election watchdog Association of Democratic Reforms moved the Supreme Court, challenging the central poll panel’s decision to conduct the special intensive revision in Bihar, which will go to polls this November.
The Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the CPI-ML-Liberation have objected to the decision claiming it was the Narendra Modi government’s ploy to bring NRC through the backdoor, using the EC as a shield.
Kumar said voters whose names are in the electoral rolls of January 1, 2003 will be considered eligible from the primary point of view under Article 326 of the Constitution.
Of the more than 7.89 crore voters in Bihar, about 60 per cent of them, roughly coming to around 4.96 crore voters listed in the special intensive revision of January 1, 2023 would not be required to submit documents to prove their eligibility.
The remaining 40 per cent of the voters, around 2.93 crore of the electorate, are staring at the possibility of disenfranchisement.
These people will have to provide one of the 11 listed documents to establish their place or date of birth.
The Election Commission has said it will soon upload the 2003 Bihar electoral roll on its website for the 4.96 crore voters whose names feature in the list to extract the relevant portion to be attached with the enumeration form for the SIR. The chief electoral officer’s office has already been sent the enumeration form.
Kumar said, “In all, 5000 such meetings were held in which 28,000 people, including leaders of political parties participated. Five national parties and four-state parties have met. If there is any issue, then all-party delegations also come and the EC meets them.”
The Chief Election Commissioner also said that in the electoral process, the voters are the most important, but after them, "our political parties are the most important stakeholders.
The RJD which is leading the opposition’s campaign in Bihar has opposed the EC’s directive.
Former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi urged the Bihari voters not to show any document to the poll panel officials, other than their photo identity card.
Speaking at the RJD’s national council meeting held in Patna’s Bapu Sabhaghar auditorium on Saturday Rabri Devi said: “Governments at the Centre and in the state have put the country up for sale. They have not hatched a conspiracy to deprive the poor of their voting rights with the Bihar assembly elections less than three months away.”
Saying the demand for fresh submission of documents was unjustified, the former chief minister then added: “People from across the state are present here. I advise them not to show any documents other than their voter identity card. Refuse when asked to do so.”
Rabri Devi questioned the timing of the special intensive revision drive.
“The intensive revision was last held more than 20 years ago. For 11 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been in power, and no need was felt for the exercise until now and suddenly they want to complete it in a month? The authorities want the people to show the birth certificates of their parents. How will a person, who might have lost all his family members long back, come up with such a proof of identity?”
The Trinamool Congress has demanded 2024 and not 2003 be considered as the base year for the special intensive revision. It also requested the apex court to review the petitions filed against the drive urgently.
“We strongly oppose the EC’s special intensive revision exercise in Bihar. As Mamata Banerjee has rightly pointed out, this NRC-like move threatens the integrity of our electoral process and risks disenfranchising millions,” the party wrote on its X account. “BJP’s habitual misuse of institutions like the EC to rig the system in Opposition-ruled states will not go unchallenged. We will not allow democracy to be reduced to a BJP plaything.”