Search for Documents Has Bihar Voters in a Quandary

The timing, necessity, feasibility and the short period in which the Election Commission of India wants to wrap up the Special Intensive Revision (SIR of the voters' list in Bihar) has created doubts among the opposition parties in particular and people in general in the state.

What was the necessity of going for the intensive revision just five months before state Assembly election?

The purpose, the chief election commissioner, told in an interview with an English daily is to identify many persons having, knowingly or unknowingly multiple voters' cards of different constituencies.

It sounds unconvincing keeping in view that it had initially denied it when West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee raised this issue earlier this year.

If the voter list had so many voters with multiple voters cards, logic demands that the commission should have initiated the revision across the country after completion of polling in the state.

On Thursday, an INDIA block delegation met the commission and apprised it of its apprehensions.

It told the commission that about two crore voters would lose their voting rights following the revision.

The delegation also questioned the commission’s decision to exclude Aadhar and ration card from the eleven approved documents to be submitted by the voters to prove their rights.

The commission seeks one of these documents from the voters for inclusion of their names in the roll.

Recently, a Uber cab driver got a call from his mother in Bihar inquiring about the necessary papers. He told her that he did not want to get involved in this exercise as he had Delhi voter Id.

The commission in reply to all these allegations just says pedantically that the exercise is being conducted under Article 326 of the Constitution and the Representation of People Act.

If so many voters were likely to lose their voting as per the opposition’s allegations, the SIR must await the conclusion of the due Bihar election.