Showdown over Bihar SIR: Oppn unites to raise pitch; JD(U) sends notice to MP who said EC move will raise questions on 2024 LS verdict

Time of India

3 days ago

NEW DELHI: Parliament disruption, election boycott threat, show-cause notice, allegations and counter-allegations ... the political showdown over Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar is getting bigger and bitter.
The opposition is training its guns at the
Election Commission
while the BJP-led NDA is backing the poll body's "cleansing" drive.
The opposition questions the timing of the move and the haste with which the Election Commission is implementing it. The move, which is currently underway in Bihar, has galvanised the opposition parties who accuse the poll body of working to help the ruling coalition in state elections.
RJD leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav has written letters to 35 prominent opposition leaders across the country expressing serious concern over the ongoing drive in Bihar and has alleged that SIR is leading to large-scale disenfranchisement and undermining of democracy. Tejashwi Yadav has threatened to boycott the upcoming assembly elections if the EC goes ahead with its exercise. The
Congress
has backed its ally and said the "Tughlaqi process" of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar will be opposed at all forums and "all options are open" for the INDIA bloc.
Not just Bihar, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who perhaps knows that her state would be next in line for the EC exercise, has already dared the poll body and asked her cadres to keep a close watch.
Speaking at a Trinamool Congress rally, Banerjee indicated the 'real battle' for 2026 would be over the voter list and not just at the ballot box, and urged party workers to stay alert against what she called attempts to carry out a 'silent purge' of Bengali-speaking voters.
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Leaders of several other parties have joined the Parliament protest against the EC move even as they eagerly wait for the next Supreme Court hearing on the matter, scheduled for next Monday.
While accepting the petitions against SIR, the top court had questioned the timing of the move while stating that it was not doubting the credentials and sincerity of the Election Commission in doing the exercise. The tops court, however, refused to stop the process calling it a constitutional mandate.
"We are of the prima facie view that Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards and the ration cards be allowed in the special intensive revision of electoral rolls,' the top court had said after the Election Commission held that "Aadhaar card is not a proof of citizenship".
The
BJP
and its allies have strongly defended the move questioning why those voters, who are not valid citizens of India, should not be excluded from the election process.
Interestingly, the counter to this argument comes from an MP of the ruling NDA itself. An MP from Nitish Kumar's JD(U) Giridhari Yadav has broken ranks with his party and criticised the EC move. Yadav, who said EC move will raise questions on the verdict of the Lok Sabha polls held last year, now faces a show-cause notice from the party.
"If the electoral rolls were correct for the Lok Sabha polls, then how can they be incorrect for the assembly polls to be held in a few months.
The Election Commission must give people six months and should hold the drive in summer months," Giridhari Yadav had said.
AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi, who has huge stakes in Bihar elections, has alleged that in the guise of an 'intensive revision,' people will be targeted & their right to vote will be snatched.
Owaisi provides an interesting data to question the EC drive: "Between 22 July and July 23 the ECI's number of untraceable electors jumped from 11,484 to 1 lakh electors."
"These are obvious signs of administrative callousness. The consequences will be borne by the poorest and the most vulnerable Indians," the AIMIM chief claims.
The SIR drive comes in the backdrop of a fierce confrontation between the Congress and the Election Commission after former party chief
Rahul Gandhi
alleged that elections are being "stolen" in India. He also claimed that his party has figured out the modus operandi of the "votes theft" by studying a Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka.
Rahul reiterated his charge today and claimed that he had "concrete 100 per cent" proof of EC allowing cheating in a constituency in Karnataka.
"I want to send a message to the Election Commission -- if you think you are going to get away with this, if your officers think they are going to get away with this, you are mistaken, you are not going to get away with this because we are going to come for you," Rahul told reporters in Parliament House premises.
The Congress leader alleged that the poll panel is not functioning as the Election Commission of India and is "not doing its job".
The former Congress chief said he would put before the people and the EC in black in white on how the "theft of votes" is being done. "Not 90 per cent, when we decide to show it to you, it is a 100 per cent proof," the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha said.
Responding to Rahul's remarks, the EC said it is "highly unfortunate" that rather than filing an election petition in accordance with section 80 of the Representation of the People Act, or if filed, awaiting the verdict of the high court, he has not only made "baseless allegations" but also "chosen to threaten" a constitutional body.
Interestingly while the Congress is gunning for the EC, one of its leaders has a different take on the issue.
Salman Khurshid has said it doesn't matter if anyone raises questions on the EC as in the end winning the election will only matter.
"Whoever is raising questions (on the Election Commission), let them... The reality is that, ultimately, unless you win the election, your point will not matter", Salman Khurshid had said last week.
Clearly, battle lines have been drawn. The EC has strongly defended SIR in top court and is unlikely to stop the exercise. The opposition, on the other hand, is convinced that the ultimate EC objective is to help the BJP in states like Bihar and West Bengal where assembly elections are due in the near future.
In it last hearing the Supreme Court had said: "We cannot stop a constitutional body from doing what it is supposed to do. Simultaneously, we will not let them do what they are not supposed to do." A clear message for both the EC and the opposition parties. Little wonder, both sides would be eagerly awaiting the next hearing before deciding their next moves.