Bihar SIR: Nearly 66 lakh voters to be out from draft electoral rolls to be released on August 1

New Delhi: Around 66 lakh voters – who are either dead, permanently shifted, enrolled in more than one place and untraceable – out of 7.89 crore in the existing voters' list will not figure in the draft electoral rolls to be published on August 1, as the Election Commission on Friday concluded the first phase of the contentious Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

The EC said in a statement that enumeration forms of 7.23 crore voters have been collected and digitised and the names of all these will be included in the draft electoral roll. Enumeration forms of around 1.2 lakh voters “are yet to be received”, it said.

During the exercise, according to the EC, around 22 lakh voters were found to be dead, seven lakh registered in more than one location and around 35 lakh “permanently shifted or could not be traced”.

“As per the SIR order, from August 1 to September 1, any elector or political party may fill the prescribed forms and submit claims to the ERO for any eligible elector who is left-out or file objections for removal of any ineligible elector,” it said.

The conclusion of the first phase of the exercise comes three days ahead of the Supreme Court second hearing on petitions against the SIR filed by Opposition parties and activists, claiming that the exercise could lead to disenfranchising the poor and migrant workers.

During the hearing on July 10, the SC had felt that EC could consider Aadhaar, voter ID cards and ration cards as documents of proof of date of birth and place.

On the need for an SIR, which is being held in Bihar after a gap of 22 years, the EC had said that significant change in electoral roll has taken place due to additions and deletions on a large scale during the last over 20 years and it needed an intensive revision.

As the Opposition had dubbed the exercise as “NRC (National Registry of Citizens), the EC had said that Article 326 of the Constitution mandates that only an Indian citizen can be a voter and it has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only persons who are citizens are electors.