Bihar: EC is doing 'vote ban', names of 2 crore voters will be deleted

Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi warned that at least two crore voters could be excluded in the process, especially Dalits, tribals, migrant workers and poor sections.

On Wednesday, 11 opposition parties strongly protested against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process being carried out by the Election Commission (ECI) ahead of the proposed assembly elections in Bihar. These parties met Election Commission officials and alleged that this process is targeting the underprivileged sections and due to this the names of lakhs of genuine voters may be removed from the voter list. Leaders of the (INDIA) alliance including Congress, RJD, CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML) Liberation, SP and NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and submitted a joint memorandum.

\Opposition parties alleged that this process could lead to the removal of lakhs of marginalised people from the voter list. They said that asking voters to produce birth certificates of themselves and their parents is not only complex and unfair but also an excessive burden on the 8.1 crore voters.

This is a ban on voting- Dipankar

The Election Commission has proposed that only those people who are registered in the 2003 voter list will be considered voters, while the rest will have to submit documents for re-enrolment. The opposition says that this is a vague and legally baseless classification, which can deprive lakhs of people of voting rights without any valid reason. CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said, "If you are not in the 2003 voter list, you will have to prove your citizenship. This is a straight 'ban on voting'."

Two crore voters may be out

Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi warned that at least two crore voters
could be excluded in this process, especially Dalits, tribals, migrant workers and poor sections. He also said that if someone's name is removed, it will not be possible to challenge it in the court after the election is announced, because during that time the courts avoid hearing election related cases.

Were the elections of the last 22 years wrong?

Singhvi also raised the question to the Election Commission that no major irregularities were reported in the elections held since 2003, then why was the need for special amendments felt now? He said that 4-5 elections were held in 22 years, were all of them wrong?

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