Over 19,000 forms submitted by new electors, no complaint by any party: ECI

New Delhi: Almost a week has gone by after the publication of electoral draft rolls in Bihar, but none of the political parties have filed any objection or complaint till August 6 morning, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said on Wednesday.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar was marked by huge uproar and protests by the Opposition parties, with the latter claiming a series of irregularities and malfunctioning in the way the whole procedure was rushed, which was bound to deprive lakhs of voters of their right to vote.

The ECI, in a statement, said that ‘zero’ claims have been submitted by any political party, so far.

On the other hand, more than 19,000 new electors, who have turned 18 after the SIR exercise, have filled out their forms for inclusion in the voter list.

In the data shared by the poll panel, 3,659 electors have submitted their objections directly to the ECI in the draft voter list.

The poll panel published its draft electoral rolls on August 1 and has kept a window of one month for people and parties to bring their complaints and grievances regarding inclusion or exclusion from the draft electoral list.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has 47,506 booth-level agents (BLAs), the Congress party has 17,549, and the Left has over 2,000, all adding up to over 67,000.

The ECI has been routinely reaching out to political parties to join the revision exercise and bring to its notice instances of disenfranchisement, if any.

“Submit your claims and objections to rectify any errors in the draft Electoral Roll of Bihar published on August 1. So far, not even a single claim or objection has been submitted by any political party,” the EC said in a statement on Wednesday.

The ECI concluded the enumeration phase of the SIR from June 24 to July 25. More than 7.24 crore electors — out of a total of 7.89 crore — submitted their enumeration forms during the exercise.

At the end, about 65 lakh voters were found to be missing from the draft electoral rolls published on August 1. This included 22 lakh deceased electors (2.83 per cent), 36 lakh (4.59 per cent) who had permanently shifted or not found and seven lakh (0.89 per cent) who had enrolled at more than one place, ECI data showed.

–IANS