The INDIA bloc on Sunday accused the Election Commission of conducting a “citizenship drive” under the garb of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and questioned the secrecy over the list of voters who had been excluded.
At a joint media conference organised by the Congress, RJD, CPM, CPI and the CPI(ML) Liberation, the Opposition bloc sought to know why the poll body was silent on Bangladeshi infiltrators and bogus voters — whom it had intended to weed out — following the conclusion of the SIR.
Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi urged the EC to stop the exercise ahead of the Assembly polls.
“I humbly request the Election Commission, this is not a matter of political obstinacy. It is not a matter of institutional arrogance. Please reconsider it. Everyone is urging you,” he said.
Singhvi said the EC’s refusal to accept Aadhaar, voter ID and ration cards as valid standalone documents for inclusion in the rolls, despite the Supreme Court’s suggestion, showed that the poll body wanted evidence of citizenship.
“So your entire focus is just on the citizenship and you have already reinforced by saying that you won’t look at Aadhaar, EPIC (Electoral Photo Identity Card) and ration cards,” he said. “The question is, does the Election Commission have the right to examine citizenship?”
Singhvi pointed out how the Representation of the People Act was amended to allow Aadhaar to be used as proof of identity for voter registration. “Now you (EC) call Aadhaar useless. Only 2-4 per cent of Bihar may have birth certificates,” he said, calling out the SIR for being riddled with “inconsistencies”.
Singhvi said the exclusion of 60 lakh voters was just the tip of the iceberg and feared that around 2 crore electors could be kept out of the final rolls in Bihar.
While announcing the exclusion of 60 lakh voters, the EC had said that the lists of those electors who had not filled up the form, were dead or had permanently migrated, had been shared with all the 12 political parties on July 20.
CPI(ML) Liberation leader Dipankar Bhattacharya claimed no such list was provided.
RJD leader Manoj Jha said: “I think in the last 22 years, there has been no bigger decision than this (Bihar SIR), but no political party was consulted.” He said several names were excluded from the rolls, but none were included.
An EC source said a one-month window (August 1 to September 1) was made available to point out wrongful inclusion or exclusion of names. “Why are they creating such a big fuss now? Why are some persons trying to give an impression that the draft list is the final list when it is not?” the EC source said.