Exercise done to ensure integrity: BJP on Bihar electoral roll revision

A delegation of INDIA bloc leaders from 11 political parties met with ECI to register their opposition to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls underway in Bihar

BJP National Spokesperson Shahzad Poonawalla on Thursday criticised the Congress for questioning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists in Bihar and said that the exercise is being done to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

"...When the same ECI conducts elections in Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh, and Congress wins there, then they raise no questions. However, this same party raises questions about the electoral process in Maharashtra and Haryana. Those who are specialised in booth capturing are questioning the electoral revision, which is being done to ensure the integrity of the electoral process...," Poonawalla told ANI.

A delegation of INDIA bloc leaders from 11 political parties met with the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the national capital on Wednesday to register their opposition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls currently underway in Bihar, calling it the "worst attack on the basic structure of the Constitution."

Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, part of the delegation that met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, questioned the timing of the SIR exercise, noting that it is being carried out only months before the upcoming Assembly elections.

"Firstly, the last revision was in 2003. For 22 years, more than four of five Bihar elections have happened. Were all those elections faulty?... Secondly the Special Intensive Revision which was held in 2003, was held one year before the Lok Sabha Elections, two years before the Assembly election. Today you are having in July, a maximum period of one or two months for an electoral revision exercise of the second most largest electoral populated state in India, Bihar...You want to have it in one and a half to two months," the Congress leader told reporters after the meeting.

Representatives of the Communist Party of India, CPI (Marxist-Leninist), Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and other parties were present.

The ECI has claimed that the SIR is only meant to verify voters and to identify any 'ineligible voters' ahead of the Assembly elections which are expected to be held later this year in Bihar. However, multiple political parties part of the Opposition, including Congress and Bihar's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), have raised objections to the exercise, claiming that it will be used to deny people their constitutional rights.

The Bihar Legislative Assembly elections are expected to be held later this year, however no official date has been announced by the ECI as of yet.