While addressing a press conference in Bihar’s Patna, Congress leader Pawan Khera alleged that the Election Commission dismissed all its whopping 89 complaints “submitted pertaining to irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)”, which the party’s Booth Level Agents (BLAs) raised.
He sought that the complete exercise to take place again. However, However, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar refuted the charges, stating that no BLA authorised by any district president of the Congress in Bihar has submitted any claim or objection on any deleted name.
Khera said, “The EC keeps getting news planted through its sources that no complaints are coming from any political party. The truth is that the Congress submitted 89 lakh complaints pertaining to irregularities in the SIR to the EC. When our BLAs went to file complaints, their complaints were turned down by the EC. The EC categorically told our BLAs that complaints could be accepted by individuals only, not by political parties.”
A total of 65 lakh voters in Bihar were removed from the electoral rolls by the Election Commission across 90,540 polling booths in the state, he mentioned. According to Khera, around 25 lakh names were deleted due to migration, while 22 lakh were removed because the individuals were deceased. Additionally, 9.7 lakh voters were taken off the list after they were found to be absent at their registered addresses, he alleged.
“Our BLOs left no stone unturned in filing complaints and objections of those voters whose names were deleted, and all applications were submitted to the District Election Officer (DEOs) concerned. The total number of booths where more than 100 names were deleted is 20,368, and the number of booths where more than 200 names were deleted is 1,988. There are 7,613 booths where more than 70 per cent of women’s names were deleted,” chairman of the media and publicity department of the Congress claimed.
He further said there are 635 booths where over 75 per cent of the deleted names in the migrant category are women, stating that it is very crucial to authenticate these figures and there are numerous cases where a single voter has been provided two EPIC numbers.
Khera added, “We also have their receipts, and now this fact cannot be denied. We hope that the data we have provided will be verified by the EC, and an investigation conducted into that. There is a need for door-to-door verification again to correct these mistakes.”
What did the office of the Chief Electoral Officer say?
“Till date, no BLA authorised by any district president of the Indian National Congress in Bihar has submitted any claim (Form 6) or objection (Form 7) on any name in the draft electoral rolls published on August 1 in the prescribed format so far. They are explicitly intended for public scrutiny, inviting claims and objections from electors, political parties, and all other stakeholders,” the office of the Chief Electoral Officer said.
It said the figure of 67,826 “dubious duplicates” stated in some sections of the media is in accordance with data mining and subjective matching of name/relative/age combinations, adding “these parameters, without documentary and field verification, cannot conclusively prove duplication. In Bihar, especially rural constituencies, it is common for multiple individuals to share identical names, parental names, and even similar ages. The Supreme Court has recognised such demographic similarities as insufficient proof of duplication without field inquiry”.
