Bihar Voter List Row: People joining SIR enthusiastically, says CEC Gyanesh Kumar, as INDIA bloc cries foul

Mint

6 days ago

Bihar Voter List Row: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on July 9 said the electors of Bihar have enthusiastically participated in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters' list, asserting that pure electoral rolls are inevitable for strengthening democracy.
Addressing a group of booth-level officers here, Kumar said the enthusiastic participation of the voters of Bihar has resulted in the successful collection of more than 57 per cent of the enumeration forms under the ongoing SIR in the state till Wednesday, with 16 days of the exercise still remaining.
"The Election Commission of India was, is and will always be with the electors of India," the CEC was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
Kumar's comments came on a day when rail and road traffic were disrupted in parts of Bihar as workers of opposition parties hit the streets to enforce a statewide bandh called by the Mahagathbandhan to protest the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
Opposition leaders, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, RJD's Tejashwi Yadav and several others of the INDIA bloc led a march to the Election Commission's office in Patna as part of the protest.
The poll panel's SIR exercise, which started in Bihar on June 25, has triggered a political storm. The opposition Congress has dubbed it 'a rigging attempt' orchestrated by the Election Commission under instructions from the ruling regime. At least half a dozen petitions by political parties, individuals, and civil society groups have been filed in the Supreme Court against what they call a 'blatantly unconstitutional' exercise.
Kumar, however, asserted that "pure" electoral rolls are inevitable for strengthening democracy. The poll panel said in a statement on Wednesday that the active participation of Bihar electors SIR and tireless efforts of the election officials, the volunteers and 1.56-lakh proactive force of Booth Level Agents (BLAs) who have been appointed by all recognised political parties, has resulted in the collection of 57.48 per cent Enumeration Forms in the first 15 days of the exercise with sixteen more days left.
'By 6.00 PM today, 4,53,89,881 Enumeration Forms, which is 57.48% of the total of 7,89,69,844 (nearly 7.90 crore) existing electors in Bihar, have been collected in the last 15 days, since the issue of SIR instructions on June 24, 2025. In the last 24 hours i.e. from 6.00 PM yesterday, 83,12,804 Enumeration Forms have been collected, which amounts to 10.52 % collected in a single day,' the poll panel said.
The Election Commission has always maintained that the revision, being held after 22 years, will cleanse the voters' list of ineligible people and duplicate entries and include those eligible to vote, in accordance with law.
The apex court on Monday agreed to hear on July 10 a batch of petitions challenging the ongoing SIR of the electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
Several pleas, including a joint petition by leaders of the Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar), Shiv Sena (UBT), Samajwadi Party, JMM, CPI and CPI(ML), were filed in the court against the poll panel's decision to conduct the SIR before Bihar went to polls later this year.
This is a rigging attempt orchestrated by the Election Commission under instructions from the ruling regime.
The Election Commission has said that the intensified revision's objective is to ensure that the names of all eligible citizens are included in the electoral roll so as to enable them to exercise their franchise, that no ineligible voter is included in the electoral roll, and that complete transparency is introduced in the process of adding or deleting electors in the electoral roll.