ECI Dismisses Bihar SIR Controversy, Says All Parties Supportive

The opposition parties have alleged that the central government through ECI is preparing National Register of Citizens and using SIR to exclude people already in the list by seeking specific documents.

“37% of people have to present their birth certificates under this. Most of these people are those who have migrated. They visit their houses only during festivals. It includes the poor, dalits, backwards and Muslims. You want to reject them through this procedure because the ruling party is afraid of its survey…The ECI is losing its credibility day by day…,” said Rashtryia Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha.

However, the ECI sources said all parties have appointed their agents to oversee the process. The BJP has appointed 51, 964 Booth Level Agents (BLAs); Congress 8,586; RJD 47,143; JD (U) 27,931; CPI-M 76; LJSP 2457; RLSP 264 and CPI-ML 233.

“All political parties in Bihar are participating actively in SIR at the booth level by appointing more than 1.5 lakh party workers as BLAs till now. In fact, the parties are in the process of appointing more and more BLAs for proper verification of the electoral rolls,” sources in ECI said.

They added that during the ongoing SIR in Bihar, ECI had advised all parties to appoint their workers as BLAs in all polling stations at this stage itself rather than finding faults with the electoral rolls later.

Sources added the ECI will soon upload the 2003 Bihar electoral roll on its website to facilitate the nearly 4.96 crore voters whose names figure on it extract the relevant portion to be attached with the enumeration form for the SIR of the voters’ list.

According to the instructions issued by the poll authority to its Bihar poll machinery, the 4.96 crore voters — 60 per cent of the total electors — who were listed in the 2003 special intensive revision need not submit any supporting document to establish their date or place or birth except the relevant portion of the electoral roll brought out after the revision. However, the other three crore — nearly 40 per cent — will have to provide one of the 11 listed documents to establish their place or date of birth.

“The basic exercise is to identify each and every individual of the remaining three crore voters before their names are included in the list,” a functionary explained. The special intensive revision will ensure that no eligible elector is left out of the electoral rolls and no ineligible one is part of it, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said.

Bihar, as of now, has more than 7.89 crore voters spread across 243 assembly seats. Polls in the state are due later this year.

Amid allegations by opposition parties that the EC has fudged voter data to help the BJP, the poll panel has taken additional steps in the intensive revision to ensure illegal migrants do not get enrolled in the voters’ list. An additional ‘declaration form’ has been introduced for a category of applicants seeking to become electors or shifting from outside the state. They will have to undertake that they were born in India before July 1, 1987, and provide any document establishing the date of birth and/or place of birth.