Chidambaram seeks answers on Bihar SIR, asks EC if duplicate entries in voter rolls are 5.2 lakh

Chidambaram said he is not accusing the Election Commission of any wrongdoing, but the people of India and Bihar are entitled to answers to the following questions on the Bihar electoral rolls.

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday posed questions to the Election Commission over the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, asking what proportion of the state's adult population has been included in the voter list and whether the number of duplicate entries is about 5.2 lakh.

What is the estimate of the adult population of Bihar according to the government of India, what proportion of the adult population has been included in the Bihar electoral rolls, and is it 90.7 per cent, Chidambaram asked.

"What about the remaining 9.3 per cent of the adult population? Why are they not included in the electoral rolls? How many names in the electoral rolls are gibberish? Is the number approximately 24,000? How many house numbers in the electoral rolls are blank or obviously invalid? Is the number over 2,00,000?" Chidambaram wrote on X.

How many names included in the electoral rolls are double or duplicate entries? Is the number approximately 5,20,000, he further asked.

"Will the ECI, in the interests of transparency and fairness, please answer the questions," the former Union minister asked.

His remarks come a day after the Congress raised several questions over the revision of electoral rolls in Bihar. The opposition party asked why the EC has not made the final list of all deleted voters available and claimed that there are more than five lakh duplicate voters in the final voter list.

The Congress' Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE), formed to monitor the conduct of free and fair elections by the EC, said the special intensive revision raises more questions than answers.

The EC's revision exercise in Bihar has drawn sharp protests from the Opposition, which has accused the poll body of working at the behest of the ruling BJP, a charge it has flatly rejected.

The Commission has asserted that it will not allow any eligible citizen to be left out of the voters' list and at the same time, not let any ineligible person be on the list.

Bihar will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11 and votes will be counted on November 14 to decide the fate of the ruling NDA government led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the challenge posed by the opposition bloc comprising the RJD and Congress among others.