NEW DELHI: Noting that “the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)” of the electoral roll in Bihar has been progressing smoothly as planned and strictly as per orders issued on June 24, 2025, officials in the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday asserted that “any misinformation being spread should be ignored”.
Meanwhile, the Commission also asserted that given repeated conflicting emails being sent by unauthorised persons on behalf of various parties, the panel “will take cognisance only of ‘Heads of Political Parties’, who are the official authorised representatives of political parties registered with the ECI and no other unauthorised person(s)”.
After getting confirmation from the CPI (ML) and the CPI(M), the ECI officials said, the poll panel will be meeting the General Secretary of the former Dipankar Bhattacharya and other authorised representatives of the two parties this evening at 5 pm.
In identical communications to political parties, the ECI said, “I am directed to state that pursuant to your email dated 30.06.2025, despite it not having any evidence of authorisation from the mentioned Political Parties, the Commission had still given a time of 05:00 PM on 02.07.2025 to the concerned Political Parties and sought their confirmation of attendance of the said meeting from the head of the parties along with one authorised person.”
It further said, however, so far, “only the General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and CPI(M) have given their confirmation in this regard”.
“Therefore, the Commission is meeting the General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation along with the authorised persons from the two parties at 05:00 PM today”.
Noting that the Commission has not yet received any confirmation from the heads of other Political Parties mentioned in the communication to the poll panel on June 30, 2025, the officials asserted that the panel “is always available to meet heads of Political Parties or their authorised representative(s), either individually or collectively at any time of mutual convenience”.
Nearly one Lakh trained Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and one Lakh volunteers are being engaged by 243 Electoral Registration Officers, 38 District Election Officers, 9 Divisional Commissioners and the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar, the officials said.
In addition, National and State Political Parties registered and recognised by ECI have also engaged more than 1.5 Lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) for each Polling Station, they said, adding that still there is time and “they should appoint more BLAs now rather than complaining later”.