New DelhiJul 23, 2025 07:44 IST
First published on: Jul 23, 2025 at 07:44 IST
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Highlighting what it described as the danger of “mass disenfranchisement”, the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Liberation Tuesday demanded that the Election Commission stop its ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar.
A delegation of CPI (ML) leaders met the three-member commission on Tuesday, as a part of the EC’s ongoing initiative to interact with national and state parties on the issue.
The SIR was started in Bihar with the EC’s order on June 24. As per the order, all 7.8 crore electors of Bihar have to fill enumeration forms by July 25 in order to be included in the draft roll to be published on August 1. In addition, for all those added to the rolls after January 1, 2003, the EC has asked for documents to establish eligibility, including citizenship.
“On the basis of our experience of the first four weeks of the SIR drive in Bihar, we are afraid that mass disenfranchisement remains a very real danger for Bihar’s poor, women, migrant workers and young electors, with all its alarming consequences,” the CPI (ML) said in a memorandum submitted to the EC.
The party said that a large number of electors do not have the 11 documents listed by the EC, which do not include Aadhaar and voter ID.
“Even applying for possible documents like domicile certificate or caste certificate has now become inordinately difficult and in all likelihood, millions will not be able to submit any documents unless the EC accepts the Supreme Court suggestion of including Aadhaar cards, ration cards or voter cards. Leaving it to the EROs to decide about all such cases on the basis of local investigations would leave the electoral roll susceptible to all kinds of bias and arbitrary administrative errors and possible manipulations and thus render the integrity of the electoral roll highly suspect,” the party said.
Meanwhile, the EC issued a statement Tuesday saying that 90.67% forms had been received so far and 52.30 lakh electors were not found at their addresses.
