Panel mulls fresh IDs for all voters in Bihar

Even as more than 15 lakh citizens in Bihar, who have turned 18, submitted applications under the ongoing SIR exercise and are eligible to get new ID cards, the Election Commission may take a call on issuing fresh IDs to existing voters, once the exercise to revise poll rolls is over.

Highly placed sources informed The Tribune that a decision to issue fresh ID cards to all existing voters of Bihar is likely to be taken once the SIR work is completed, adding that new voters (who have turned 18 and submitted applications under Form 6) will anyway get voter ID cards.

Sources further said that while voters have ID cards in Bihar, they did not rule out mulling over the possibility of issuing fresh cards to existing voters. “Let us see,” said an EC source.

Meanwhile, till August 31, 15,32,438 applicants, who have turned 18 this year, in Bihar had submitted applications under SIR to be included as new voters.

Apart from this, 2,07,565 voters have submitted applications for exclusion of names from the draft electoral rolls, while 33,326 applications have been received for inclusion of names.

Of the total claims received from political parties like CPI(ML) (Liberation), 103 are for exclusion of names while 15 claims were filed for voter’s inclusion. The RJD has filed only 10 claims for inclusion of names in the electoral rolls of Bihar till August 31.