Nationwide revision of electoral list likely after SC decision on Bihar, say EC officials

The all-India special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is likely to be conducted once all the pending petitions against the exercise in Bihar are disposed of in courts, sources aware of the development said.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has scheduled a meeting of its state-level CEOs to discuss the requirements and preparedness for the proposed pan-India exercise on September 10.

EC sources said, “Although the SIR at an all-India level is to be conducted, it is the poll body’s constitutional mandate to protect the integrity of the electoral rolls. A date for it will be decided once all the petitions filed against the Bihar SIR are cleared by the Supreme Court.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court will also hear petitions challenging the decision of the poll panel to conduct SIR in Bihar.

Earlier during a hearing, the court had said that the EC is a constitutional authority and deemed to act in accordance with law. However, the court would step in if there was mass exclusion in the SIR of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state, it had added.

Incidentally, the poll body is yet to share the final data of submissions that it has cleared relating to exclusion and inclusion of names in the draft electoral rolls of Bihar.

Notably, it has almost been a week after the month-long window that it had provided to voters and political parties to submit their objections ended on September 1.

The poll panel had uploaded the draft electoral rolls on August 1 after collecting enumeration forms from all voters of Bihar between June 25 and July 26. Till 10 am on September 1, 2,17,049 voters had given applications for exclusion of names from the state’s draft roll, while 36,475 voters had given applications for inclusion of names.

Among political parties, the CPI(ML) (Liberation) gave 103 applications for exclusion of names and 15 for inclusion, followed by BJP with 16 applications for exclusion of names. The RJD also gave 10 applications for inclusion of names.