Bihar SIR row: Repose faith in us, not one voter will fall through cracks, ECI tells SC

New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday asked the Supreme Court to repose faith in it for carrying out the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar and assured "not one voter will fall through the cracks".

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, which was hearing a batch of pleas challenging the June 24 decision of the poll panel to conduct the SIR, allowed the excluded voters to submit their claims online or physically, emphasising the entire exercise had to be voter friendly.

It allowed claim forms to be submitted by excluded voters along with Aadhaar card number or any one of the 11 prescribed documents in the SIR.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the ECI, said none of the political parties so far filed any objections with regard to exclusion of 65 lakh voters from the draft list published on August 1.

He, as a result, urged the court to give the ECI a 15-day window to show there was no exclusion and said, "Give us some time, we will ensure that not one voter will fall through the cracks." "The political parties are making hue and cry and things are not bad. Repose faith in us and give us some more time. We will be able to show you there are no exclusions," Dwivedi said.

The ECI informed the bench that around 85,000 individual voters who were excluded in draft rolls had submitted their claim forms and over 2 lakh new voters had come forward to register their names in the electoral rolls under the SIR exercise in the state.

"This is surprising. Voters are individually coming forward. Then what are these political parties doing? We are on the inaction of political parties. What are the booth level agents doing then? Why the distance between political workers and the local people? These political parties should come forward and assist the voters in submitting their forms," the bench said.

Dwivedi said the political parties were actually "whipping up fear among the voters for political interest".

"This is an exercise for elections. Some party will win and form a government. Political parties can carry out their protests but they have to come forward and tell us our mistakes. Our chief election commissioner has held a press conference recently and invited all the political parties to assist the commission in the exercise," he added.

The poll panel further revealed not asking political parties to appoint a particular number of agents, underlining no maximum cap in doing so and said they could make any number of appointments even now.

"Our understanding is that if each booth level agents (BLA) of the political parties verifies at least 10 names of the 65 lakh excluded voters, then in a single day the 1.60 lakh BLAs who have been registered till now, will be able to verify 16 lakh voters. In four to five days we will be able to verify the entire 65 lakh voters who have been excluded from the draft roll," Dwivedi informed the bench.

The ECI, he said, has instructed all the elector registration officers to not delete any name from the draft roll without conducting any inquiry or giving the electorate an opportunity to be heard.

"We don't want to exclude anyone. Individuals can themselves come forward with any claim or objections," he said.

Expressing surprise over political parties not coming forward to assist the voters, who have been excluded from the draft list published on August 1, in filing objections the top court directed the chief electoral officer of Bihar to implead them in the court proceedings.

"All the political parties shall file the status report by the next date of hearing on the claim form they had facilitated in filing by excluded voters," the bench said as it posted the matter for September 8.

It directed the recognised political parties to issue specific directions to more than 1.60 lakh registered BLAs to facilitate filling of the claim forms of 65 lakh excluded voters except for those who are dead and those who have voluntarily migrated to other constituencies. PTI MNL MNL AMK AMK