Tejashwi Challenges ECI And Points Out Various Irregularities In SIR Draft Roll

By Dev Raj

Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav came up with a plethora of questions on Saturday to slam the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) draft electoral roll, and challenged it to provide booth-wise details of the voters who have been removed from it.

“We challenge the ECI that if it has worked in a transparent manner then it should provide electoral rolls of every booth to the political parties and tell how many names have been removed from them and why. Providing the data should not be difficult because the entire exercise was done at the booth level itself,” Tejashwi asserted.

Alleging that the Commission was acting like a cell of a particular political party, the RJD leader, who happens to be the younger son of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, appealed to the Supreme Court to take cognizance of the latest issues and seek facts and clarifications on them from it. He also demanded more time for the people struck off from the electoral roll to prove their credentials.

Terming the exercise to have been fraught with irregularities, including arbitrariness of the booth-level officers (BLOs) and rigging, Tejashwi also sought details of the grounds on which over 65 lakh voters were deleted from the rolls, and whether they were contacted, informed, or given any opportunity before being removed.

“There has been no transparency in SIR, and it has been conducted without taking the Opposition parties in the loop. We were asserting that the poor and the migrant workers would be struck off, and it has happened. The ECI is providing constituency-wise draft rolls to the political parties, but without the names of the voters that have been removed, the reasons for doing so,” the RJD leader told reporters.

Tejashwi, who happens to be the Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Legislative Assembly, asserted that the ECI was behaving like a dictator with the attitude of “do anything you want to, we will do whatever is entrusted by the two Gujaratis. It did not pay heed to our demands, nor the suggestions by the Supreme Court to include Aadhaar card, ration card and Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) among the documents being sought with the enumeration forms.”

Speaking further, the RJD leader pointed out that as per the SIR draft electoral roll, around 20,000 to 30,000 names were struck off from each of the 243 Assembly constituencies in the state without providing details of the number of the people who were deceased, migrated, listed at multiple places, permanently shifted, or missing.

“The ECI has not provided the booth numbers, address of voters along with their EPIC numbers to the political parties for a comparative study, and to verify the people who have been removed. This is where the Commission is acting clever and hiding facts. The Supreme Court is hearing the case pertaining to SIR, and the ECI is under pressure to ensure that actual information does not come out,” the RJD leader said.

Tejashwi, who is the younger son of RJD president Lalu Prasad, pointed out that the ECI was silent on the steps or techniques used to declare anybody dead, missing, repeated or permanently shifted.

“Did the Commission take the death certificates from the family members of the deceased. How did it come to know about the missing, shifted or repeated people? Did the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) go thrice to each such voter’s address? Such an attitude is very dangerous for democracy, and we need to worry about it. How will the elections happen when people will not be allowed to vote?” he asked.

Talking further to media persons, the RJD leader, who leads the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in Bihar, raised concern about the ECI statements about 35 lakh migrant workers stationed in other states, when the figure should be around 3 crore as per the central government’s data.

He also questioned how many voters were provided slips as evidence of the submission of enumeration forms, how many of them were given information about deletion of their names, and how many enumeration forms were submitted without documents and photographs.

The other Opposition parties also came out against the SIR draft electoral roll and pointed out several anomalies in it.

CPIML Finds Out Two Live Voters Listed As Dead

The CPIML found out two voters who were alive, but were declared dead and removed from the draft electoral roll, and wrote to the ECI about it.

“We have emailed objections to the Election Commission in Delhi and Patna about two surviving electors declared dead and removed from the draft electoral roll. We have attached all the evidence with it. There are indications of wide-ranging irregularities in SIR, and they are coming to light slowly,” CPIML Bihar secretary Kunal (goes by one name) said.

The Left party has also found 20 voters on four booths of Bhore (Reserved) Assembly constituency in Gopalganj district and shared their details and photographs with media persons on Saturday.

“Eight of the 20 voters have been included in the draft electoral roll after we raised objections. We are seeking full details of all 65.64 lakh voters removed by the ECI. We cannot completely pinpoint the irregularities in SIR without it,” Kunal added.

CPI Demands Special Camps At All Polling Booths

The CPI demanded special camps by the ECI at all polling booths till September 1 to receive objections from the aggrieved voters. It also asked the Commission to put up lists of removed electors at their respective polling booths.

“We will conduct an intensive public campaign at all polling centres in Bihar till August 10 to seek details about the eligible electors who have been removed from the SIR draft electoral roll, and ensure that they are reincluded in it,” CPI Bihar secretary Ram Naresh Pandey said.

CPM To Take To The Streets On SIR

The CPM held its state committee meeting on SIR on Saturday and announced that its leaders and workers would come out on the streets to agitate against the irregularities witnessed in the SIR exercise.

“Our party will conduct agitations at all levels to give direction to the widespread public protest against SIR going across the entire state. This exercise is akin to the National Register of Citizens and an attempt to compromise the voting rights,” CPM politburo member Ashok Dhawle said.

The ECI response

Amid the protests by the Opposition parties in Bihar, the ECI asserted that it had not received any objections on the SIR draft electoral roll by any Opposition party till 3 pm on August 2, including claims to include any eligible voter or remove any ineligible one.

It added that the district electoral officers (DEO) of all the 38 districts in Bihar have shared draft electoral rolls of all 90,712 polling centres spread across 243 Assembly constituencies with all recognised political parties on Friday (August 1).

“We have also shared the names of electors that were present in the electoral rolls on June 24, but have been removed in the SIR draft electoral roll so that the political parties could verify them. Around 1.60 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of 12 recognised political parties are also actively participating in the entire exercise, including the field work,” the ECI added.

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