Bihar Assembly polls: CPI(ML)L raises objection to EC over special revision of electoral rolls

EC had said that objective of “intensive revision” was to ensure that names of all eligible citizens are included in electoral rolls and no ineligible voter is included.

New Delhi: The CPI(ML)L has written to the Election Commission raising “strong objections” on conducting a ‘Special Intensive Revision’ (SIR) of the electoral roll ahead of Bihar Assembly elections later this year, calling it a “logistically absurd idea”, as the exercise in a “short time frame” will result in “utter chaos and large-scale inaccuracies and deletions”.

The party, which won 12 out of 19 seats in 2020 Bihar elections and two Lok Sabha seats in 2024 Lok Sabha polls from the state, also said the SIR will be “akin to the NRC exercise in Assam” where it took six years to cover a population of 3.3 crore while Bihar has 7.8 crore voters, who have to be covered in the exercise in one month’s time.

In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Wednesday, CPI(ML)L General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said they were “shocked” to hear about the “suddenly ordered” SIR during which the EC is to conduct complete house-to-house enumeration of around 7.8 crore voters in Bihar “within just one month and collect filled in enumeration forms”.

“The last time such an intensive revision was conducted in Bihar was in 2002 when there were no elections approaching and the size of the electorate was around 50 (five crore) million,” he said. Bihar saw state polls in 2000 and 2005 and Lok Sabha election in 2004.

“Our party has been most closely involved with the landless poor’s right to vote movement in Bihar and we're afraid that a special intensive revision campaign within such a short time frame ahead of the elections will result in utter chaos and large-scale inaccuracies and deletions,” he said requesting the EC to “drop the logistically absurd idea” at this period and “carry out normal updating of the electoral roll”.

The EC proposes to treat the 2003 electoral roll as the base list and voters added subsequently will have to furnish a whole range of identity proofs. Electors not able for some reason to furnish necessary documents during this time frame will be liable to be deleted from the electoral roll and deprived from their voting right, he said.

He expressed hope that the EC will “seriously respond” to their concern and make sure that on the 75th anniversary of the Constitution and the Republic, the people of Bihar are “not deprived” of their fundamental democratic right to vote. 

Announcing the exercise on Tuesday, the EC said the objective of the “intensive revision” is to ensure that the names of all eligible citizens are included in the electoral rolls and no ineligible voter is included. 

It will also ensure “complete transparency” in the process of addition or deletion of voters in the rolls. Voters who have registered after 2003 and new voters will have to provide proof of date of birth or place of birth and the names of those who cannot provide such will be struck from the electoral rolls.