Bihar Poll Revision: 4 Days Left, Opposition Files 82 Claims, Objections

The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday said it has so far received 82 objections from political parties and nearly two lakh applications from voters in Bihar seeking inclusion or deletion of names from the draft electoral rolls.

In its daily bulletin, the poll body said that the CPI(ML) Liberation has filed 79 objections, while Bihar's Opposition party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), has submitted three complaints.

The Commission also said it has so far received 1.95 lakh applications from individual voters. More than 8.5 lakh new electors have also applied for inclusion in the rolls.

The claims and objections period opened on August 1 and will remain active till September 1.

The poll body has said that the month-long opportunity has been provided to individuals, political parties, and their 1.6 lakh booth-level agents (BLAs) to flag errors.

The SIR in poll-bound Bihar began on June 24, based on enumeration forms collected during field-level enquiries by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of political parties.

The draft rolls were published on August 1 and shared with all 12 recognised political parties in the state.

Ahead of assembly elections in Bihar, due later this year, Opposition parties have staged protests against the revision of electoral rolls.

Calling it "vote chori", they have alleged that the Election Commission's exercise is aimed at "disenfranchising voters" in Bihar ahead of the assembly elections due later this year.

The poll body, however, has defended the exercise, saying many "non-eligible persons" have been able to procure voter cards as the SIR was not held periodically since 2004 and also that "many persons" have, knowingly or unknowingly, managed to retain multiple voter cards of different constituencies.