NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday said that the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and his team of Electoral Registration Officer (EROs) have disposed 341 of total 13,970 claims filed directly by electors for inclusion of names in the draft voter list and exclusion of ineligible voters as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
The poll panel, however, said that in the past 12 days, since the draft electoral rolls were published on August 1, not a single complaint has filed political parties even though Booth Level Agents (BLAs) nominated by political parties and registered by the ECI are actively participating in the SIR process in the state.
It said as per rules, the claims and objections are disposed of by the ERO/AERO concerned after the expiry of seven days following the verification of the eligibility of documents.
The ECI in its latest bulletin said that in Bihar since August 1, as many as 63,591 new electors, who have turned 18 after the SIR exercise, have filled forms for inclusion in the voter list. For such first-time voters, the election office has received six forms from Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of political parties.
The Commission has been under persistent attack from the opposition parties over alleged irregularities, which they allege threaten to deprive lakhs of voters of their right to vote - a charge that has been vehemently denied by the ECI.
The poll panel published its draft electoral rolls on August 1 and has kept a window of one month for people, parties and their BLAs to bring their complaints and grievances regarding inclusion or exclusion from the draft electoral list.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has 47,506 BLAs, the Congress has 17,549, and the Left parties have over 2,000, all adding up to over 67,000.
The ECI has been routinely reaching out to political parties to join the revision exercise and bring to its notice instances of disenfranchisement, if any, officials said.
“Submit your claims and objections to rectify any errors in the draft Electoral Roll of Bihar published on August 1. So far, not even a single claim or objection has been submitted by any political party,” a senior ECI official said.
The ECI has highlighted that between June 23 and July 25, the Congress has increased its BLAs to 17,549 (an increase of 105 percent), Rashtriya Janata Dal to 47,506 (an increase of 1 percent), Janata Dal (United) to 36,550 (an increase of 31 percent) and BJP to 53,338 (an increase by 3 per cent).
The ECI had concluded the enumeration phase of the SIR on July 25, which began on June 24 and more than 7.24 crore electors - out of a total of 7.89 crore - submitted their enumeration forms during the exercise.
Those who were left out of the draft rolls included 22 lakh deceased electors (2.83 per cent), 36 lakh (4.59 per cent), who had permanently shifted or were not found and seven lakh (0.89 per cent), who had enrolled at more than one place, according to the ECI data.