Bihar SIR row: No legal requirement to publish list of deleted voters or give reasons for exclusion, EC tells SC

Faced with allegations of deleting lakhs of eligible voters from electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in poll-bound Bihar, the Election Commission has asserted that there’s no legal requirement to prepare/publish a separate list of voters excluded from draft electoral rolls or give reasons for their exclusion.

Ahead of the August 12 hearing, the poll panel has filed two affidavits filed in the Supreme Court to counter the allegations levelled by petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which has challenged the poll panel’s June 24 notification for SIR in Bihar.

“As neither the law (The Representation of People Act) nor guidelines (The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960) provide for preparation or sharing of any such list of previous electors whose enumeration form is not received for any reason during the Enumeration phase, no such list can be sought by the petition as a matter of right,” the EC said.

Stating that it has issued strict directions to prevent wrongful deletion of voters from electoral rolls, the EC asserted that no eligible voter will be removed without prior notice, an opportunity to be heard and a “reasoned and speaking order”.

The affidavits have been filed in response to the August 6 direction of the Supreme Court requiring the EC to furnish by August 9 details of around 65 lakh voters deleted from the draft electoral rolls in Bihar.

The ADR had sought a direction to the EC to publish names of deleted voters, clarifying if they were dead, have permanently migrated or they were not considered for any other reason.

The draft rolls published on August 1 contained the names of all those whose enumeration forms were received and anyone whose name was missing could file Form 6 along with a prescribed declaration by September 1 after which Electoral Registration Officers must hold hearings and give reasons in cases where inclusion is contested, it said.

On the petitioner’s allegation that the draft voter list did not contain reasons for non-submission of Enumeration Forms, the EC said, it was “patently false and erroneous” and yet another attempt to “mislead and prejudice this Hon’ble Court.” The poll panel urged the top court to initiate contempt proceedings against the petitioner for “deliberate attempts to mislead” it.

On August 1, the EC came out with the ‘draft electoral rolls’ in Bihar, enlisting 7.24 crore voters. The final electoral roll will be out on September 30. Of the total 65 lakh voters removed from the draft electoral rolls, 22.34 lakh were dead and 36.28 lakh had permanently shifted or were absent while 7.01 lakh voters were enrolled at more than one place, the EC said.

“We will see (to it) that every voter likely to be affected gets the required information,” the Bench had assured on August 6. Earlier, the Bench had said it would step in if there was mass exclusion of eligible voters and the EC deviated from the SIR notification.

Explaining the SIR process, the EC said names of those left out were shared with Booth Level Agents of recognised political parties on July 20 – 12 days before the publication of draft electoral rolls to allow corrections and updated lists were again shared with political party representatives.

The EC said the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar, 38 District Election Officers (DEOs), 243 Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), 2,976 Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), 77,895 Booth Level Officers (BLOs), 2,45,716 volunteers, and 1,60,813 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) — appointed by all major political parties — were involved in the SIR exercise.

It has undertaken specific measures such as SMS campaigns, repeated BLO visits, and introduced a provision for any BLA to submit up to 50 forms daily; advertisements in 246 newspapers to reach temporary migrants; urban camps in all 261 urban local bodies; and advance enrolment drives for young voters turning 18 before October 1, to avoid exclusions, the EC said.

Responding to the ADR’s allegations, the EC said that a 10-point verification and inclusion mechanism involving booth-level visits, political party participation, targeted awareness campaigns and special assistance for vulnerable groups was in place and that it was taking “every possible step” to ensure that no legitimate voter was excluded from electoral rolls.

The EC said after the completion of the first stage of SIR, following house-to-house visits by BLOs to collect enumeration forms from existing voters, the draft electoral rolls were published on August 1.

The poll panel said it has made special arrangements for senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and vulnerable voters in obtaining necessary documents and district officials promptly addressed issues highlighted in the media.