Bihar poll survey finding illegal immigrants, say Election Commission sources
PATNA: Bihar's ongoing special intensive revision of electoral rolls has unearthed an unspecified number of illegal immigrants from Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar residing in the state and aiming to become voters with Aadhaar, ration cards and domicile certificates acquired through fraud,
Election Commission
sources said Sunday based on reports from booth-level officers.
The purported findings of the door-to-door voter verification campaign have already become a political hot potato, with RJD's Tejashwi Prasad Yadav dismissing these as 'rubbish'. EC is still to make an official statement.
Official: Poll rolls will be purged of anyone flagged as foreigner
Officials said that the final poll rolls would be purged of anyone flagged as a foreigner during the survey.
The rolls are to be published on Sept 30. The house-to-house verification exercise started on June 25 with the focus on verifying places of birth.
Teams conducting the survey have found 'a considerable number of people from neighbouring countries' during their visits across the state, sources said.
Tejashwi, leader of opposition in the state assembly, held a presser in Patna to question the credibility of the sources behind the 'claim' that foreigners had infiltrated the rolls with fake papers.
'Has Election Commission issued any document or press release on the matter? This claim is based on 'sources' whom I have no reason to believe,' he said.
BJP shot back, saying Tejashwi and the rest of the opposition were 'nervous' about losing their allegedly 'illegal vote base'. 'If Tejashwi had his way, he would allow citizens from Bangladesh and Pakistan to vote through postal ballots. No wonder the intensive rolls revision has left the entire opposition worried,' said state BJP spokesperson Manoj Sharma.
He accused RJD supporters of helping illegal immigrants get their names included in the rolls. 'Why else is Tejashwi concerned about illegal migrants being weeded out, but not Bihari migrants outside the state who have still to be included in the electoral rolls?"
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