The Election Commission has said that it received enumeration forms of 90.12% of Bihar’s electors ahead of the July 25 deadline for its special intensive revision (SIR) of the state’s electoral roll, and that over 36 lakh were found “not at their addresses”.
The EC had ordered the SIR on June 24 and launched it the next day. The commission said in the order that it has decided to conduct the exercise for the whole country and was starting with Bihar as Assembly elections are due in the state. The EC order said that all 7.8 crore registered electors of Bihar would be required to submit enumeration forms by July 25 to make it to the draft roll to be published on August 1.
On Friday, the EC said 7.11 crore forms had been received so far and 6.85 crore of them had been digitised. The EC also said 36.86 lakh electors (a little over 4.67% of total voters) had been found to be “probably” deceased, permanently shifted or enrolled at multiple places. It said 6,978, or 0.01% of the electors, were “not traceable”.
The commission said the lists of the “probably” deceased, shifted and untraceable electors were being shared with district presidents of political parties and their booth level agents “to ascertain the exact status of each such elector before July 25”. The electors and parties would have from August 1 to September 1 to file claims and objections on the draft roll. Electoral Registration Officers would have till September 25 to dispose of these claims and objections before the final electoral roll is published on September 30.
“As per the SIR order, each of the more than 1.5 lakh BLAs (booth level agents) can submit up to 50 forms a day after certifying them. This step is in line with the ECI’s commitment that no eligible elector is left out,” the EC said.
Several booth level officers (BLOs) told The Indian Express that they have been working to complete the SIR exercise “two-three days before” the July 25 deadline.
