NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) is working on a plan to issue new voter identity cards to all electors of Bihar after the completion of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the State, officials said.
They, however, said that a final decision on when the new cards would be issued “is yet to be taken by the poll panel”.
Officials noted that when Bihar electors were given enumeration forms, they were asked to submit filled-out documents along with their latest photographs, which will be used to update records and issue fresh voter identity cards.
According to the draft electoral roll of Bihar, which was published on August 1, the state has 7.24 crore electors, but the final voters list is going to be published on September 30.
The assembly elections in the state are likely to be held in early November, as the current assembly’s term ends on November 22 and a new House must be constituted before that date.
According to the ECI, 99 percent of those who had filled-out the enumeration forms have submitted their documents. So far, 33,326 people have sought inclusion in the voters’ list as their names were missing from the draft rolls, while 2,07,565 applications have been received for exclusion from the draft rolls.
Among these, RJD, the main opposition in the state assembly, has submitted 10 requests for inclusion in the draft list, whereas CPI (ML) Liberation has submitted 15 such requests for inclusion and 103 for exclusion. The other 10 registered parties have not submitted any request either for inclusion or exclusion.
Separately, Bihar has become the first state where the number of electors per polling station has been reduced from 1,500 to a maximum of 1200 as part of rationalisation exercise to ensure lesser crowding of polling stations on voting day.
Due to rationalisation, the number of polling stations in the state has gone up from 77,000 to 90,000. The rationalisation exercise will eventually be carried out pan-India, officials in the poll panel said.
