Office of the Election Commission of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Ahmedabad: With the curtains coming down on Bihar Assembly elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) probably had the last laugh, given the criticism it received for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
Congress and its allies called the SIR 'vote chori' and attacked the ECI as well as the NDA government at the Centre. The I.N.D.I.A bloc accused the ECI of working at the behest of the BJP.
When the final voters' list was released on September 30, the number of electors came down from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore. The ECI claimed that it had weeded out the names of deceased, migrated, or duplicate voters.
However, the exercise drew sharp criticism from the Opposition parties as well as civil society members who approached Supreme Court and forced the ECI to include documents like Aadhaar, which it had initially rejected to consider.
While the exercise was on, DH traveled across central, east and north Bihar to assess the reaction of the exercise. People did complain about the lack of time that the ECI gave them, but there was no groundswell against the exercise itself.
The BJP termed the 'vote chori' campaign of the Opposition as 'support to infiltrators or ghuspaithiya'.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, led the 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar. Political analysts said the march helped moribund Congress in Bihar get a new lease of life. However, the party and its allies failed to maintain the momentum.
"I think they lost momentum during seat-sharing talks as the coalition was unhappy. The BJP and NDA did look scared, but ultimately, SIR couldn't become an electoral issue. However, the protest by civil society did force the ECI to accept many documents it was initially refusing," said Hemant Kumar, a Patna-based journalist.
The ECI, meanwhile, stated on November 4 that after 'successful completion of SIR', phase-II of the exercise would be launched covering about 51 crore electors across nine states and three union territories.