Bihar SIR row: Election Commission deprecates ADR’s ‘baseless and communal’ approach

Asserting that not a single appeal has been filed by any voter against name deletion since publication of the final electoral roll on September 30 after completion of Special Intensive Revision in Bihar, the Election Commission on Thursday refuted petitioner ADR’s allegation of “disproportionate exclusion of Muslims”.

In an affidavit filed in the top court, the poll panel termed the Bihar SIR exercise as “accurate” and described the allegation about exclusion of Muslims levelled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) as “baseless and communal”.

“The petitioners have sought to allege that there is disproportionate exclusion of Muslims—25% among the 65 lakh excluded voters from the Draft Electoral Roll, and 34% among the 3.66 lakh electors finally deleted. This is based on some software for name recognition, whose accuracy or appropriateness cannot be commented upon. This communal approach is to be deprecated,” the EC submitted.

“The electoral rolls database does not capture any information on religion of any elector...,” the poll panel said, adding these 65 lakh deleted individuals were not included as they did not submit enumeration forms being dead, having permanently shifted or having entries in more than one constituency.

ADR counsel Prashant Bhushan demanded that the EC should disclose how many voters were deleted and for what reason to ensure transparency in the SIR exercise.

The EC said that political parties and public-spirited organisations made little effort to assist in the process of ensuring that all eligible electors were included. Instead, their approach was largely accusatory, focused on pointing out errors rather than contributing constructively.

Political parties filed only 25 claims for inclusion and 119 objections, while 36,475 inclusion and 2.17 lakh exclusion claims were received directly from individuals. No appeals so far have been received against exclusions from the final list, the poll panel said, seeking dismissal of petitions challenging the June 24 notification for SIR in Bihar.

Pointing out that despite the assistance of the State Legal Services Authority the number of objections and correction applications were minimal, the EC said, “This indicates that the SIR exercise was accurate. Even after the determination of the objections and deletion of approximately 3.66 lakh individuals from the final electoral roll, no appeal has been reported as of now.”

Noting that the absence of political parties from the hearing could be due to political rallies in the poll-bound Bihar, the Bench said it expected the poll panel to look into typographical errors and other mistakes in the final electoral roll prepared after the SIR exercise and come out with remedial measures.

Amid legal battle over SIR, assembly elections in Bihar will be held for 121 seats of the 243-member Assembly on November 6, while the remaining 122 constituencies will go to polls on November 11. The counting of votes will take place on November 14.

The Bench deferred to November 4 hearing on legal issues pertaining to the challenge to Bihar SIR.

The petitioners have “ulterior motives” and are merely content with making “false allegations” to discredit the SIR exercise, final electoral roll and the ECI for electoral interest of political parties, the poll panel said.

Barring appointment of Booth Level Agents (BLAs), the political parties and public-spirited individuals and organisations made no substantial contribution in ensuring that all the eligible electors were included in the final electoral roll, it said.

“The approach of the political parties and the petitioners has been to accuse the EC and attempt to point out errors in the SIR exercise. In contrast, the EC not only appointed more than 90,000 BLOs, but also involved political parties and got BLAs appointed. The exercise was conducted on an H2H basis involving more than one visit. All relevant data was uploaded on the websites,” it submitted.

On September 30, the EC, while publishing the final electoral list of the poll-bound Bihar, said the total number of electors has come down by nearly 47 lakh to 7.42 crore in the final electoral roll from 7.89 crore before SIR.

The final figure, however, increased by 17.87 lakh from 7.24 crore electors named in the draft list issued on August 1, which had removed 65 lakh voters from the original list on various accounts, including deaths, migration and duplication of voters. While 21.53 lakh new electors have been added to the draft list, 3.66 lakh names have been removed, resulting in a net increase of 17.87 lakh.