Over 340 claims, objections addressed in Bihar voter list revision: ECI

The Election Commission of India said Bihar officials have disposed of 341 claims and objections related to the draft voter list during the Special Intensive Revision. Despite over 67,000 Booth Level Agents in the state, no political party has filed complaints

New Delhi: Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and his team of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have disposed 341 claims and objections received directly from electors for inclusion of names in the draft voter list and exclusion of ineligible voters, an official said on Tuesday.

The election office has so far received 13,970 claims and objections from electors concerning Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, said an ECI bulletin. It said as per rules, the claims and objections are disposed by the ERO/AERO concerned after the expiry of 7 days following the verification of eligibility of documents.

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However, even after 12 days of the publication of electoral draft rolls, none of the political parties has filed any complaint, the poll panel said. The ECI said that in Bihar since August 1, as many as 63,591 new electors, who have turned 18 after the SIR exercise, have filled forms for inclusion in the voter list.

For such first-time voters, the election office has received six forms from Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of political parties. The SIR exercise in Bihar has been attacked by the Opposition parties over alleged irregularities, which they allege threaten to deprive lakhs of voters of their right to vote – a charge denied by the ECI.

The poll panel published its draft electoral rolls on August 1 and has kept a window of one month for people, parties and their BLAs to bring their complaints and grievances regarding inclusion or exclusion from the draft electoral list.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has 47,506 BLAs, the Congress has 17,549, and the Left has over 2,000, all adding up to over 67,000. The ECI has been routinely reaching out to political parties to join the revision exercise and bring to its notice instances of disenfranchisement, if any.

“Submit your claims and objections to rectify any errors in the draft Electoral Roll of Bihar published on August 1. So far, not even a single claim or objection has been submitted by any political party,” the EC said in a statement.

The ECI highlighted that between June 23 and July 25, the Congress has increased its BLAs to 17,549 (an increase of 105 per cent), Rashtriya Janata Dal to 47,506 (an increase of 1 per cent), Janata Dal (United) to 36,550 (an increase of 31 per cent) and BJP to 53,338 (an increase by 3 per cent).

The ECI concluded the enumeration phase of the SIR between June 24 to July 25. More than 7.24 crore electors — out of a total of 7.89 crore — submitted their enumeration forms during the exercise.

At the end, about 65 lakh voters were found to be missing from the draft electoral rolls published on August 1. This included 22 lakh deceased electors (2.83 per cent), 36 lakh (4.59 per cent) who had permanently shifted or were not found and seven lakh (0.89 per cent) who had enrolled at more than one place, ECI data showed.