Bihar electoral roll adds 1.787 million voters after SIR exercise

The Election Commission's special intensive revision in Bihar ended with 1.787 million new voters added, taking the final roll to 74.2 million ahead of Assembly polls

The three-month-long process of ‘special intensive revision’, or SIR, of Bihar’s electoral rolls concluded on Tuesday evening with the Election Commission (EC) publishing the poll-bound state’s final electoral roll.

 

On June 24, when the EC announced the launching of the SIR, the number of electors on the rolls were 78.9 million.

 

After the EC concluded the field surveys under the SIR in July, the draft roll on August 1 contained details of 72.4 million electors, as it deleted 6.5 million registered voters, which it found to be “absent”, “shifted” or “dead”.

 

The EC’s final electoral roll for Bihar, published on Tuesday, now contains details of 74.2 million voters, a net increase of 1.787 million over the draft electoral roll it published on August 1.

 

 

The final electoral roll has added 2.153 million electors to the draft list (of August), and removed 366,000 names, which has resulted in a net increase of 1.787 million.

 

The EC said the final figure may change marginally after supplementary lists are published during the poll process. The poll authority is visiting Patna on October 4 and 5 to take stock of the poll preparedness. The term of the 243-member Bihar Assembly ends on November 22.

 

In a statement, the EC said the SIR exercise, the first such in the state in 22 years, was carried out in line with Article 326 of the Constitution and the EC’s motto of “no eligible voter to be left out, and no ineligible person to be included in the Electoral rolls”.

 

The EC was yet to provide specific details like district-wise break up, number of males, females and third-gender voters, and proportion of different age groups.

 

Political activist Yogendra Yadav, one of the petitioners against the EC’s SIR in the Supreme Court, on Tuesday flagged what he said were unexplained increase of the number of electors in the poll panel’s data.

 

Yadav said that as per the EC, the new form-6 received till September 1 were 1.693 million (and any later claims were not to be on the final rolls). “Yet, as per today’s (Tuesday evening’s) data, EC has added 2.153 million voters. So the question: How did at least 460,000 new voters get added in the final roll after September 1,” he asked.

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (United) welcomed the EC’s publishing of the final electoral roll of Bihar and pointed out that the Opposition’s criticism of the SIR had no basis, which has now been proved with over 1.7 million names having been added.

 

State Congress president Rajesh Kumar voiced “serious concerns” about the number of deletions in the draft roll “remaining far in excess of the number of additions" in the final roll. “The credibility and impartiality of the EC remains doubtful,” he said.

 

The EC has announced that it will undertake the SIR across the country. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar thanked EC officials, around 100,000 Booth Level Officers (BLOs), volunteers and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by 12 political parties.