EC to release Bihar draft electoral rolls amidst voter exclusion concerns

The Election Commission (EC) is all set to publish the draft electoral rolls for Bihar on Friday following the completion of a month-long Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls.

This would also kick off the process of "claims and objections", which would continue till September 1, and during the period, voters with complaints of wrongful deletion of names can approach the authorities concerned seeking a remedy.

The EC claims there were 7.93 crore registered voters in the state before the SIR began late last month.

The process has faced criticism and protests from the opposition, with concerns over potential mass deletion of voters.

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 seven 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.

Critics of the exercise, who felt it was being undertaken to "help" the ruling NDA in the upcoming polls, which the JD(U)-BJP combine will face with an incumbency of 20 years, moved the Supreme Court, which said earlier this week that the SIR should result in "en masse inclusion and not en masse exclusion".

Earlier, political leaders such as CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, who is also one of the petitioners who moved the Supreme Court, had voiced concerns that the ruling dispensation would try to play its "the real game" during the claims and objections phase, with the help of "empowered" but pliant EROs and AEROs.

Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, recently created a flutter by threatening to "boycott" the upcoming elections if concerns were not addressed squarely.