Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday cast doubts over the Election Commission’s claim that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar was progressing at a brisk pace and would be completed before the July 25 deadline.
Addressing a press conference here, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly also took strong exception to the EC’s “silence” on the Supreme Court’s suggestion that Aadhar card and ration card be included in the list of acceptable documents, to be submitted by voters whose names did not figure in the electoral rolls of 2003 when SIR was last conducted.
The young leader said, “In its press note issued on Saturday, the EC claimed that more than 80 per cent of the state’s 7.90 crore voters have already been covered under SIR. This is a bewildering claim considering the fact that an estimated four crore people from Bihar live in other states.”
“We would like to know from the EC how many such migrants have been covered under the exercise. It is well known that during the elections, a large number of people return to their home state to cast their votes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, several special trains had to be run for an estimated 40 lakh returnees. The EC should disclose what arrangements were made this time,” the former deputy chief minister said.
The EC seems to be playing with figures to give a false impression that it has been undertaking this exercise competently, he alleged.
“We have received complaints that booth-level officers (BLOs) are under pressure to achieve targets and they are ending up collecting enumerating forms without getting those duly signed and filled up by the voters concerned,” he added.
Yadav also had a few video clips played, in which enumeration forms were shown strewn on the streets, to underscore that the SIR was marred by many irregularities.
However, the X handle of the chief electoral officer has been running “fact checks” debunking these videos.
Yadav alleged, “The EC is never coming up with a proper statement or press conference explaining what it intends to do about the SC order earlier this week when it was told to consider including Aadhar card and ration card.”
There is no clarity on the role that booth-level agents nominated by political parties are supposed to play in the exercise, he said.
“In its tearing hurry to meet the July 25 deadline, the EC came up with an advertisement proclaiming that those unable to submit their documents may just deposit their forms, leaving the remaining things for the claims/objections stage. But there was no official notification to this effect and the BLOs are confused,” claimed the chairman of the INDIA bloc’s coordination committee for the state assembly polls due later this year.
Yadav, who spoke in the presence of a number of alliance partners, also said, “We still hold the view that SIR is an exercise aimed at depriving, wrongfully, many existing voters of their right to franchise in order to benefit the ruling NDA. Leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar should be squarely blamed for this undemocratic move.”
In the 2020 assembly polls, there were several seats in which candidates of Mahagathbandhan (INDIA bloc’s Bihar prototype) lost by margins of 3,000 votes or less. A little manipulation in the voters’ list can easily tilt the scales. If indeed the EC believes that the voters’ list had been suspect so far, it should declare last year’s Lok Sabha elections as null and void, Yadav said.
He scoffed at the claim of the BJP that the exercise was essential to weed out “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and Rohingyas” from the voters’ list.
“In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-led coalition did exceedingly well. Even last year, the NDA bagged 30 out of the state’s 40 seats. So the BJP should tell us whether it thinks the alleged infiltrators were voting for Narendra Modi,” he added.
