BIHAR SIR ROW
New Delhi, Aug 22: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Election Commission to allow excluded voters to submit their claims online or physically with Aadhaar card or any one of the 11 prescribed documents in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
Emphasising that the entire enumeration exercise has to be voter friendly, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi at the same time expressed surprise over political parties not coming forward to assist the voters, who have been excluded from the draft list published on August 1, in filing objections. It then directed the chief electoral officer of Bihar to implead the political parties in the court proceedings.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the EC, submitted that the poll panel has put the entire list of 65 lakh excluded voters in public domain with reasons by displaying it at the office of district returning officer, chief electoral officer office, Panchayat and block level office, websites and social media handles. The lists have been put up at every polling booth also, he added.
The court asked the political parties to file the status report by the next date of hearing on the claim form they had facilitated in the filing by excluded voters. It posted the matter for further hearing on September 8.
It directed the recognised political parties to issue specific directions to their over 1.60 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) to facilitate filling of the claim forms of 65 lakh excluded voters except for those who are dead and those who have voluntarily migrated to other constituencies.
The top court noted that since August 1 only two objections with regard to excluded voters were filed by BLAs, a figure which was disputed by RJD MP Manoj Jha, who claimed through his lawyer Fauzia Shakil that booth level agents were not given acknowledgement receipts when they went to submit such forms physically.
It directed the election officials to furnish an acknowledgement receipt to the booth level agents of the political parties, who submit the claim forms of excluded voters physically but clarified that such a receipt would not mean that the form is complete.
Repose faith in us : EC to SC
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday asked the Supreme Court to repose faith in it for carrying out the SIR of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar and assured “not one voter will fall through the cracks”.
Dwived urged the court to give the ECI a 15-day window to show there was no exclusion and said, “Give us some time, we will ensure that not one voter will fall through the cracks.”
“The political parties are making hue and cry and things are not bad. Repose faith in us and give us some more time. We will be able to show you there are no exclusions,” Dwivedi said.
The ECI informed the bench that around 85,000 individual voters who were excluded in draft rolls had submitted their claim forms and over 2 lakh new voters had come forward to register their names in the electoral rolls under the SIR exercise in the state.
“This is surprising. Voters are individually coming forward. Then what are these political parties doing? We are on the inaction of political parties. What are the booth level agents doing then? Why the distance between political workers and the local people? These political parties should come forward and assist the voters in submitting their forms,” the bench said.
Dwivedi said the political parties were actually “whipping up fear among the voters for political interest”.
“This is an exercise for elections. Some party will win and form a government. Political parties can carry out their protests but they have to come forward and tell us our mistakes. Our chief election commissioner has held a press conference recently and invited all the political parties to assist the commission in the exercise,” he added.
The poll panel further revealed not asking political parties to appoint a particular number of agents, underlining no maximum cap in doing so and said they could make any number of appointments even now. (PTI)