Keeping option of boycotting Bihar assembly polls open: RJD's Tejashwi amid SIR row

Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday asserted that the party was keeping the “option open" to boycott the upcoming assembly polls in the wake of controversy over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.

The leader of the opposition made the remark outside the state assembly on the penultimate day of the monsoon session, responding to queries from reporters.

“We are keeping the option open for boycott of the assembly polls. When the time comes, we will take a decision following a discussion with the alliance partners. What is happening in the name of SIR is nothing short of a fraud,” Yadav said.

“Booth-level officers are putting their own signatures and thumb impressions, on behalf of voters, on enumeration forms. Blank forms are being used like waste paper. Independent journalists who point out these anomalies are getting slapped with FIRs. And the government is okay with all this because the EC is acting like a political tool of the ruling dispensation,” he alleged.

During house-to-house visits in the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, poll officials have so far found that more than 52 lakh voters were not present at their addresses and another 18 lakh have died, according to the Election Commission.

Opposition parties have claimed that the EC exercise will disenfranchise crores of eligible citizens.

The RJD has also moved the Supreme Court against the voter roll revision in Bihar.

Opposition members, who have been turning up at the state assembly for the past couple of days dressed in black as a mark of protest against the SIR, were allowed to make statements by the Speaker on Thursday. A couple of ministers also took part in the discussion.

Yadav expressed anguish that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar “did not utter a word” on the issue, while the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Kumar Chaudhary “only tried to mix up the annual revision of electoral rolls with the special intensive revision that is taking place now”.

Reacting to the claim of Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary that migration has come down in Bihar under the NDA rule and only “two-three per cent of the state’s total population” was eking out a living in other parts of the country, Yadav said, “I have sent him a printout of a statement in Parliament by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, which states that the number of Bihari migrants is more than three crore”.

“It seems that the government, which is elected by the people, wants to choose who can vote for it. The EC is paying no heed even to the advice of the Supreme Court, which had asked it to consider, including Aadhaar card and ration card, in the list of acceptable documents,” the RJD leader said.

Asked about the NDA’s charge that he was threatening to boycott the assembly election fearing defeat, Yadav said: “We would not have contested polls after polls, and made the BJP and allies sweat it out had we been scared of a fight.” He also said that “the real game” will begin August 1 onwards when the EC will start preparation of the draft roll, and voters will be allowed to file their claims or objections.