Bihar SIR drive: 22 dead voters figure in draft electoral roll

Patna: Amid the claims by the Election Commission of “purifying the Bihar electoral roll by weeding out bogus voters” and the counter-claims by the Opposition of “poll fraud being committed by deleting names of genuine voters,” the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) here in the state is headed for a major showdown.

One such classic case is Gardanibagh area of Patna where 22 persons, all dead, figure in the list of draft voters’ list released by the EC.

In booth number 479 of Digha Assembly constituency, the voters’ list shows Shankar Prasad, his son Navin and Navin’s wife Sita Devi as electors with the serial number 799, 804 and 806 respectively. Strangely enough, all the three passed away in 2010, 2020 and 2021 respectively.

“We never filled up their forms as all three are dead. But still their names exist in the voters’ list,” said Surendra Prasad of Saristabad in Gardanibagh, who is the brother of the deceased Shankar. “And the enumeration form which we filled up also has too many anomalies. Like, for example, my daughter-in-law Ravita. In the column of her husband’s name, my name has been mentioned,” lamented Surendra Prasad.

But then Surendra is not alone. Ram Sundar Rai of the same area says that he filled up his enumeration form but did not fill up the form for his wife of Sundarpati Devi who passed away in 2023. “But still the name of my wife (serial number 753) exists in the electoral roll. The BLO never visited my house. As such, there was no proper verification about who all are alive or dead,” said Ram Sundar Rai.

Altogether, there are 22 such persons, including 15 males and seven females, who are no more, but figure in the voters’ list of booth number 479 where there are altogether 1007 voters. This includes 538 males and 469 females.

The booth level officer (BLO) of the concerned booth, Veena Kumari, said this is just a draft electoral roll. “This is not the final list. There is still time to carry out corrections. The names (of those dead) were already there in the voters’ list. Such names (of deceased) will be deleted now,” said the BLO.

Opposition reaction

Alarmed over such anomalies, the Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav has asked all his MLAs to prepare a list of such persons in their constituency who are alive but names deleted or about those who are dead but still figure in the list. “This should be done in the next 48 hours,” said Tejashwi. Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who has been at the forefront accusing the EC of poll fraud, too will take out ‘Matdaata Adhikar Yatra’ (Voters’ Right March) from Sasaram in Bihar on August 17.