Patna, 5 Oct

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday asserted that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar "purified" the voters' list after 22 years, and said many new initiatives were being undertaken for the upcoming Assembly polls, which would be replicated across the country in due course.

Kumar, who was accompanied by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, addressed a crowded press conference before winding up a two-day tour of the state, where he received feedback from representatives of political parties and discussed poll preparedness with officials.

“With the successful completion of SIR, the voters’ list in Bihar has been purified. It is after a gap of 22 years that such a cleansing has taken place. The exercise will now be conducted across the country,” Kumar said.

The CEC also spoke of a number of “initiatives” that were being introduced in polls to the 243-strong Bihar assembly, which had “38 constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and another two for Scheduled Tribes”.

These initiatives, “which will be replicated across the country in due course”, include a new standard operating procedure to ensure that EPIC cards are delivered to voters within 15 days of registration, and a mobile deposit facility at polling booths.

“In order to prevent overcrowding of polling stations, it has been decided that no booth shall have more than 1,200 voters. To make the voting exercise easier for the electors, mobile deposit facility is being introduced at booths,” Kumar said.

“Other new features include 100 per cent webcasting at all polling booths and mandatory verification of VVPAT slips in case of complaints of mismatch in EVM data,” he said.

Kumar began his address with a few sentences in local dialects Maithili and Bhojpuri, and noted the submission by most parties that polls be held immediately after ‘Chhath’, the state’s most popular festival, later this month.

He also made it clear that the election process will be completed before 22 November, when the term of the current assembly ends.

“We have also been urging political parties to ensure that they appoint polling agents, at all booths, as well as counting agents so that all are satisfied that elections have been held in a transparent manner,” the CEC said.

Kumar said the names of 65 lakh voters had been struck off prior to publication of the draft roll in August.

“Another 3.66 lakh names were removed during the month-long period of claims and objections that followed. Those whose names have been removed were found declared ineligible as they were either not citizens of the country, or were dead, or had migrated elsewhere or had their names registered at more than one place,” he said.

A break-up of the persons declared “ineligible” under these categories was, however, not provided.

Allegations have surfaced that many people were wrongly declared as “dead”, while the presence of “foreign nationals” in voters’ list has been disputed by parties opposed to the ruling BJP at the Centre.

“If anybody feels that his or her name has been wrongfully deleted from the electoral roll, an appeal could still be filed before the district election office concerned,” Kumar said.

He also showered praise on “243 EROs (electoral registration officers) and 90,207 booth level officers” for completing in time the SIR, which began in July.

Many of the EROs and BLOs were present on the occasion and the CEC asked them to pose with the visiting team, before the media contingent, for photographs.