Bihar electoral roll revision will disenfranchise more than 2 crore voters, INDIA bloc tells EC

Eleven INDIA bloc parties on Wednesday told the Election Commission that its decision to undertake a special intensive revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls months ahead of Assembly elections risked disenfranchising more than 2.5 crore voters, as they may not be able to produce the necessary documents.

A delegation of the Opposition bloc met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi in New Delhi.

They questioned the exercise’s timing and feasibility and also raised doubts about its methodology given that the process is allotted a “maximum period of only 1-2 months”.

Assembly elections in Bihar are scheduled to be held at the end of the year.

Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi noted that the last such revision took place in Bihar in 2003. He said that representatives of the INDIA bloc told the poll panel that four to five elections have been held in Bihar in 22 years since then, and asked whether they were all faulty.

Singhvi added that the 2003 special intensive revision was held a year before the Lok Sabha elections and two years before the Assembly elections in Bihar.

“Today, you are having it in July, a maximum period of one or two months for an electoral revision exercise of the second largest electoral populated...

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