The Election Commission on Friday published the draft electoral rolls for poll-bound Bihar following a month-long special intensive revision (SIR), drawing allegations of vote theft and large-scale disenfranchisement by the Opposition.
Voters and parties now have until September 1 to file claims and objections. Voters who have not submitted documentary proof also have a month to do so at special camps at block-cum-circle offices and municipal offices.
The SIR has shrunk Bihar’s electorate from 7.89 crore to 7.24 crore. Eligible voters whose names have been deleted and those who will turn 18 before October 1 have been asked to register afresh at the camps.
District heads of recognised parties in Bihar were given booth-wise electoral rolls along with a formal request by the district election officer for cooperation in the revision process by filing claims and objections.
Para 6 of the appeal stated: “Article 326 of the Constitution stipulates that every person who is a citizen of India and who has attained the age of 18 years on the eligibility date, is ordinarily resident in the concerned constituency and has not been disqualified under any other law, shall be entitled to be registered in the electoral roll. In the light of the said provision, necessary information regarding ineligible voters should also be provided to the BLO/Assistant Electoral Registration Officer/Electoral Registration Officer in time through the BLA.”
In other words, booth-level agents (BLAs) of parties are being encouraged to report suspected foreigners on the electoral rolls.
Under the SIR, the onus is on the voter to prove their eligibility, including citizenship. Petitioners against the SIR in the Supreme Court have objected to the EC taking on the responsibility of citizenship verification. Opposition parties have also alleged that the BLAs of the BJP are not merely assisting voters but also filling up their forms. The apex court has not stayed the SIR but has nudged the EC to accept Aadhaar and voter ID cards as proof.
“We have evidence that the EC is facilitating vote theft. I am saying this with 100 per cent evidence. As soon as we present this evidence to everyone, the entire country will know that the EC is facilitating vote theft…. It is facilitating the BJP,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said outside Parliament on Friday. “The EC was not helping us, so we conducted our own investigation. This investigation took six months, and what we found is an atom bomb. Those who are involved in vote theft in the EC, we will not spare them.”
Rahul had earlier claimed electoral fraud in a Karnataka constituency. The Karnataka chief electoral officer had denied the charges.
Referring to Rahul’s comments, the EC on Friday posted on X: “Now, after a year, making baseless allegations against lakhs of election workers, repeatedly issuing threats and using terms like 'vote theft' is a very irresponsible approach.”
RJD MP Manoj Jha told reporters: “In a democracy, and especially for Bihar right now, the most serious issue facing the entire country is that the SIR is being turned into a tool for selective and intensive deletion.”