New Delhi, Oct 01 :
The Opposition parties and civil society organisations have met the final electoral roll published under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar with scepticism and criticism.
They have questioned the data provided by the Election Commission (EC), alleged a scam, and sought clarifications from the Commission.
The final roll released on Tuesday revealed 7.42 crore voters in the state, which was 47 lakh less than the 7.89 crore voters present in the rolls on June 24 before the advent of SIR. Over 65 lakh voters were struck off in the draft electoral roll published as a part of the exercise on August 1. Later on, 3.66 lakh more were removed as ‘ineligible electors’ and 21.53 lakh were added as ‘eligible electors’ to arrive at the final figures.
BJP ghuspaithiya (intruders) in SIR final electoral roll: RJD “The final electoral roll has muddled up the issue further. It indicates a scam in which around 4.5 lakh additional names have been included. The EC has not clarified on it, and we are considering the addition as the intrusion of fake BJP voters,” RJD state general secretary and spokesperson Chitranjan Gagan told ETV Bharat.
Explaining his views, Gagan pointed out that, as per the data provided by the EC, around 16.57 lakh people had submitted ‘form 6’ for the inclusion of their names in the electoral rolls till September 1. Similarly, 36,425 voters made claims of wrongful deletion in the draft electoral roll and sought re-inclusion of their names till September 1.
“Altogether around 16.93 lakh people had sought the inclusion of their names in the electoral rolls by September 1. However, the final electoral roll reveals that the EC added 21.53 lakh names. How did the number jump by over 4.5 lakh? Who are these people? This is a very big scam,” Gagan said. Using the opportunity to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for claiming the presence of ghuspaithiya (foreign intruders) in Bihar and other states, the RJD leader said: “They raised the bogey of intruders, but actually these 4.5 lakh voters added to the final electoral roll are the real intruders. They are the BJP ghuspaithiya.” Congress says deletions still huge and worrisome; evaluating the situation
The Congress slammed the EC and Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over the SIR final electoral roll and questioned their impartiality. It pointed out that the situation was being evaluated at the grassroots.
“Gyanesh is terming SIR as a successful exercise, but actually, its impartiality and transparency are in question. Our party workers are intensively evaluating the reality on the ground to find out how many voters have been delisted from the electoral roll through SIR and how many have been added. The matter does not end here,” Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Rajesh Kumar aka Rajesh Ram said.
Asserting that the number of people removed in the final electoral roll was still “huge and worrisome” at 47 lakh, Rajesh appealed to all citizens, workers and political parties to objectively assess the “successful” process of SIR to ensure that no eligible citizen is left out. “We will fight for the rights of voters till the last breath,” the BPCC president added. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spearheaded the protest against the alleged irregularities in SIR in Bihar and conducted a 16-day ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ from August 17 to September 1, to highlight the anomalies, as well as to make the people aware of their right to vote.
