After India’s Election Commission deleted 65 lakh names from the rolls in the draft stage, nearly 3 lakh more electors may soon find themselves struck off the voter list. This after the EC ordered a contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls ahead of the Bihar assembly elections.
According to the EC, 7.24 crore electors had made it to the draft electoral roll published on August 1, of which the documents of 98.2% of electors had been received. Of these, the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) are said to have found discrepancies in the documents of about 3 lakh electors, according to a report by The Indian Express.
The discrepancies are said to be on account of electors either not submitting any document, or submitting incorrect ones. Notably, there are also instances where an elector’s eligibility, including citizenship, is under doubt.
The report added that EROs have been issuing notices to such electors asking them to come forward within seven days to clear things up. However, the notices don’t cite any rule or provision of law, instead it says it is a notice for “verification of entries in the draft roll”.
The number of people being struck off the voter list is likely to increase as the EROs of Assembly constituencies are still inspecting the documents.
Remember, the EC’s SIR order on June 24 had asked all 7.89 crore registered electors of Bihar to fill enumeration forms by July 25 to make it to the draft roll. But only 7.24 crore forms had been received by the deadline. The EC justified the deletions of 65 lakh names saying the electors had been found to be dead, migrated, enrolled at multiple places or untraceable.
The EC’s SIR is already being challenged in the Supreme Court. This after petitioners argued that the last SIR was done in Bihar in 2003, a departure from the usual practice of updating the rolls annually and before elections.
