Bihar: Zero objections by political parties against SIR, a week after draft rolls 

New Delhi, Aug 7 (IANS) The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday said that all political parties taken together including the Opposition – RJD and Congress, have filed zero ‘claims and objections’ for inclusion or exclusion in the electoral draft rolls, a week after its publication. However, 5,015 people have directly submitted objections with the poll panel.

‘No objection’ to the draft rolls by parties assumes importance as a week has already passed after the August 1 publication for redressal of complaints and grievances.

Even as 5,015 people have directly submitted objections with the poll panel, in terms of new electors, those crossing the stipulated age of 18 years for voting, more than 27,000 individuals have sought the EC’s nod for getting their names added in the voters list.

The draft rolls published after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar became a bone of contention between Opposition and the Election Commission, as the former smelled a plot in ‘dropping’ of about 65 lakh electorate from the list.

The EC has maintained that the process remains clean and transparent and the deletion of 65 lakh names from the list was necessitated because of inevitable reasons like death or permanent migration of residents.

The EC 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 RJD has 47,506 Booth Level Agents (BLAs), the Congress has 17,549 and the Left has over 2,000, all adding up to over 67,000 BLAs.

Bihar has a total of 7.89 crore voters. Out of that, 7.24 crore electorate submitted their enumeration forms during the SIR drive and therefore comprised eligible voters after the purging exercise. As 65 lakh electorate failed to make it to the voters list after revision, the Opposition parties started gunning for the EC, accusing it of undertaking a ‘biased and partisan’ exercise in the poll-bound state.

–IANS

mr/rad