New Delhi: Days after the publication of the draft electoral roll by the Election Commission of India (ECI) pursuant to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar, an application has been filed before the Supreme Court demanding publication of assembly constituency and booth wise list of names and details of the 65 lakh electors who did not make it to the draft rolls, along with reasons.
The application was filed on Tuesday on behalf of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which is one of the petitioners challenging the SIR exercise in Bihar. The petitions are set to come up in the Supreme Court next week.
The ECI had published the draft electoral roll on 1 August. According to the EC data, the draft electoral rolls based on the SIR exercise do not include over 65.6 lakh voters from 38 districts in Bihar. Of this 65.6 lakh, the EC explained, more than 22 lakh had died, over 36 lakh have permanently shifted or were untraceable, and another 7 lakh voters have enrolled as electors in multiple places. The ECI has, therefore, said that their enumeration forms were not submitted or included in the draft rolls.
The ECI has been releasing a daily bulletin since the publication of the draft rolls, pointing out that from 1 August to 3 pm on 5 August, no claims or objections have been filed by any political party. It has pointed out that currently, over 1.6 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) have been appointed by 6 national and 6 state political parties.
However, it has received 2,864 claims and objections directly from electors, over inclusion of eligible voters or exclusion of ineligible voters. It has also received 14,914 applications from new electors who have attained the age of 18 years.
The ADR application before the Supreme Court now demands “a full and final assembly constituency and part/booth wise list of names and details of approx 65 lakh electors whose Enumeration Forms were not submitted along with reasons for non-submission (Death, Permanently Shifted, Duplicate, Untraceable, etc.) against each name”.
It also demands an assembly constituency and booth wise list of electors whose enumeration forms were “not recommended” by the Booth Level Officers (BLOs). It explains that the ECI had said that once the BLOs uploaded the forms, they had to give a recommendation against each enumeration form, and claimed that it had received information for two districts—Darbhanga and Kaimur—which show that the BLOs had marked “not recommended by BLO” against a large percentage of electors whose enumeration forms were uploaded.
The application claims that while the ECI has provided a list of approximately 65 lakh electors whose names were not included in the draft rolls to the BLAs of political parties, “the list with names of 65 lakh deleted electors curiously fails to disclose the reason for non-submission of their enumeration forms, information that the Election Commission evidently possesses”.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: Bihar SIR: Gopalganj sees largest dip in voters at over 15%, Seemanchal’s Kishanganj & Purnia follow
