In response to a fresh petition filed by an NGO, the Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide details of 65 lakh voters purported to be missing from the draft electoral rolls published post Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in poll-bound Bihar.
A bench of Supreme Court comprising Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh asked the counsel representing the ECI to submit details of omitted voters and share details with Association for Democratic Reforms, a lead petitioner that challenged the poll body’s June 24 order to carry out Special Intensive Drive in Bihar.
The recent SC order came on the back of the petitioner NGO filing a fresh application to seek the top court’s direction to the ECI to publish the omitted names of about 65 lakhs from the electoral rolls with details pertaining to – “whether they are dead, permanently migrated or not considered for any other reason”.
“We will see every voter likely to be affected and get the required information. You (EC) file a reply by Saturday… and then we can see what is disclosed and what is not disclosed”, The Indian Express quoted the bench as saying to EC’s counsel.
It might be mentioned that that the draft electoral rolls in Bihar had omission of errors with 65 lakh names not making it to the voter list owing to “most of the persons concerns had died or migrated” as claimed by the poll panel. The EC enlisted 7.24 crore voters in the draft electoral rolls and made the printed copies available with the political parties for the “claims and objections” phase until September 1 before the “final rolls” are published.
Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi claims the entire SIT exercise as the “BJP-ECI” nexus behind the “electoral fraud” while releasing data alleging “voter theft” in Karnataka in favour of the BJP.
