A day ahead of the culmination of its “Voter Adhikar Rally” in Patna, the Congress on Sunday claimed that it had raised 89 lakh complaints related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar even as the Election Commission (EC) moved quickly to dismiss them.

“The Congress’s investigation has found over 89 lakh discrepancies in the voter lists of 243 Assembly seats. There are discrepancies even in the list of voters who have been proclaimed dead. The EC has refused to accept bulk objections by booth-level agents (BLAs) and insisted on separate forms for each voter. The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) seems to be pressured into not accepting complaints from political parties,” Congress’s media cell chairman Pawan Khera said.

Advertisement

Almost immediately rebutting the Congress’s claims, the EC said that the party had not raised any objections. In a press statement, the EC said that it had received only 128 complaints, of which 118 and 10 were filed by Congress’s INDIA bloc partners CPI (ML)L and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) respectively. “Till date, no booth-level agent (BLA) authorised by any district president of the Congress in Bihar has submitted any claim (Form 6) or objection (Form 7) on any name in the draft electoral rolls published on September 1 in the prescribed format,” the statement read.

Escalating allegations of “vote theft” levelled by Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, the Congress had started its Voter Adhikar Yatra on August 17 from Rohtas district. At various points, the yatra saw the participation of several INDIA bloc leaders from other states like Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin, Telangana CM A Revanth Reddy and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. After traversing through 25 of the 38 districts of the state, the yatra is set to culminate on Monday in Patna with a march from Gandhi Maidan to the Income Tax Square. The top brass of the INDIA bloc, including Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI (ML)L supremo Dipankar Bhattacharya, NCP(SP)’s Supriya Sule and Jitendra Awhad, CPI(M)’s D Raja and M A Baby, and JMM chief and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren are like likely to participate in the march.

Meanwhile, the EC has listed four reasons for deleting names from electoral rolls. While migration was cited to take off 25 lakh names, another 22 lakh were proclaimed dead. A total of 9.7 lakh voters were absent at the provided address while 7 lakh voters were taken off the rolls for being registered at multiple booths.

Story continues below this ad

According to Khera, 75% of the deleted voters were proclaimed dead in 7,931 booths. “Fifty deleted voters in each of the 5,239 booths were marked absent. The high number of migrated and deceased voters have a suspicious pattern,” he added.

ALSO READ | Mass deletion of voters is looming over Bihar SIR

Elaborating on his party’s “investigation”, Khera said there were 20,368 polling booths from which 100 voters were deleted while 1,988 booths saw the deletion of 200 voters. “In 7,613 booths, 70% of deleted voters were women while in 635 booths, women made up 75% of those deleted citing migration. This suggests women voters were being targeted,” he added.

Bihar Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Vinod Singh Gunjiyal dismissed the allegations. “Over the last 1-2 days, district presidents of the Congress have written to District Election Officers (DEOs) over deletion of voters from electoral rolls. Under rule 13 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, objections may be given only in Form 7, or BLAs appointed by political parties may give the affidavit in the prescribed form along with declaration as per Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950,” the statement added.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s August 22 interim order, the CEO clarified that complaints must be submitted in the prescribed format to the concerned Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). “The Congress’s objections are not in the prescribed format. The DEOs are forwarding the objections to the concerned EROs. During this period, it is expected that the ERO, after taking such an oath as may be prescribed, will take an appropriate decision on the process of deletion of about 89 lakh voters, at his discretion” the CEO’s statement read.