Confusion over voters: Bihar SIR remains mired in controversy
The Tribune Editorial: The ECI would be well advised to address all the shortcomings before it initiates a pan-India SIR.
THE Bihar Assembly elections are just four weeks away, but the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the state’s electoral rolls continues to be under judicial scrutiny. The Supreme Court has told the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide details of 3.66 lakh voters excluded from the final rolls that were published on September 30. The SIR has witnessed a lot of number-crunching ever since the ECI launched the ‘clean-up’ exercise on June 24. At that time, the count of electors in Bihar was 7.89 crore. The total dropped to 7.24 crore in the draft list that was issued on August 1 — the names of 65 lakh voters were removed on various grounds, including death, migration and duplication. The final list has 7.42 crore voters: 21.53 lakh names have been added to the draft list, while 3.66 lakh have been deleted, resulting in a net increase of 17.87 lakh.
