EC publishes draft electoral rolls for Bihar following SIR

The Election Commission (EC) on Friday published the draft electoral rolls for Bihar, following the completion of the month-long Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise ahead of the upcoming assembly polls.

No compiled list was made available, but voters can check their names on the EC's website.

There were 7.93 crore registered voters in the state before the SIR began in June, according to the EC.

It is yet to be known how many voters are in the just-published draft rolls.

Printouts of the rolls will be made available to representatives of various political parties later in the day, officials said.

The publication of the draft rolls kicked off the process of "claims and objections", which would continue till September 1. During this period, voters with complaints of wrongful deletion of names can approach the authorities concerned, seeking a remedy.

Assembly elections would be due in the state later this year.

In the first stage of SIR, voters were provided with "enumeration forms", either by booth-level officers (BLO) or booth-level agents (BLA) nominated by political parties, which they were to return after putting their signatures and appending documents acceptable as proof of identity.

People also had the option of downloading and submitting these enumeration forms online.

The process was over by July 25 and, according to the EC, "7.23 crore voters" submitted their enumeration forms, while 35 lakh were found to have "permanently migrated or gone untraceable".

Another 22 lakh have been reported to be deceased, while 7 lakh people were registered as voters in more than one electoral roll.

The EC also claimed that enumeration forms were not submitted by 1.2 lakh voters.

The mammoth exercise was carried out by BLOs deputed across 77,895 polling centres, assisted by 1.60 lakh BLAs and other volunteers, under the supervision of 243 EROs (Electors Registration Officers) and 2,976 Assistant EROs.

The opposition parties criticised the exercise, alleging that it was undertaken to "help" the ruling NDA in the upcoming polls. Petitions were also filed against it in the Supreme Court, which said earlier this week that the SIR should result in "en masse inclusion and not en masse exclusion". PTI