EC releases names of 65 lakh voters deleted from Bihar rolls during SIR

Supreme Court had ordered booth-wise publication of excluded electors before August 19

Patna: The Election Commission (EC) on Monday came out with the names of 65 lakh people who were removed from the draft electoral rolls published as part of the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, officials said. The development came after the Supreme Court directed the EC to publish the deleted names by August 19 and file a compliance report by August 22.

The EC is publishing the names of ‘ASD’ (Absentee, Shifted, and Dead) voters across polling booths, and is likely to do so online as has been directed by the apex court, they said. According to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Bihar, ASD lists have been displayed at polling booths in Rohtas, Begusarai, Arwal, Siwan, Bhojpur and other places.

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The Supreme Court, in an order on August 14, directed the Election Commission to publish an enumerated, booth-wise list of around 65 lakh electors not included in the draft electoral roll, published on August 1, during the ongoing SIR exercise in Bihar, where assembly elections are due later this year.

More than 65 lakh enumeration forms were ‘not included’ in the draft electoral rolls prepared as part of the first phase of SIR by the EC in Bihar, bringing down the total number of around 7.9 crore registered voters to 7.24 crore.

Patna accounted for the highest number of 3.95 lakh non-included enumeration forms, followed by Madhubani (3.52 lakh), East Champaran (3.16 lakh), Gopalganj (3.10 lakh), Samastipur (2.83 lakh), Muzaffarpur (2.82 lakh), Purnia (2.739 lakh), Saran (2.732 lakh), Sitamarhi (2.44 lakh), Katihar (1.84 lakh), Kishanganj (1.45 lakh), according to the EC.

Sheikhpura is the district where only 26,256 enumeration forms were not included in the draft roll, followed by Sheohar (28,166), Arwal (30,180), Munger (74,916) and Khagaria (79,551).

The EC claimed that ‘22,34,501’ people, registered in the electoral roll, were found to be dead during the exercise. Another 36.28 lakh have ‘permanently shifted’ out of the state or were ‘not found’ at their stated addresses, and another 7.01 lakh have been found enrolled at ‘more than one place’.