Election Commission to send teams to Bihar to audit electoral rolls

The Election Commission will dispatch four special teams of 'auditors' to poll-bound Bihar for weeding out duplicate entries from electoral rolls.

According to official sources, the four teams, comprising six officers each, are part of the Commission's newly-set up Regulatory Audit Division and Bihar will be their first assignment.

The Audit Division has been mandated to detect specific instances of non-adherence to the Commission's guidelines or legal provisions required to be followed by the field election machinery. Maintenance of the quality of electoral rolls is its other task.

Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi had earlier said that the commission is yet to decide on the exact schedule of the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls.

"There is no doubt that Bihar assembly elections are going to be a significant and a challenging one. The tenure of present [Bihar] Assembly will get over on November 29 and we will have to complete election process before that," Zaidi told ANI.

"At present, we have started the summary revision in Bihar which will take place in May, June and July and on July 31, the final voter list will be published," he said.

The assembly polls in Bihar, slated for late this year, will be a heated affair, with six parties having merged under the Janata Parivar banner contesting against the BJP and the Congress.