Bihar SIR: EC releases draft roll Amid Rahul Gandhi's 'vote chori' charge
LoP in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with Samajwadi Party MP Akhilesh Yadav, RJD MP Misa Bharti, DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and other INDIA bloc MPs at a protest against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, during the Monsoon session of Parliament, in New Delhi | PTI
The Election Commission on Friday released the draft electoral roll for Bihar polls, on completion of the first phase of special intensive revision of the voters' list in the poll-bound state.
According to the Commission, voters can visit the poll body's website and check details. Before the intensive enumeration exercise, there were 7.93 crore registered voters in Bihar. In a statement published on July 25, the Commission said 7.24 crore electors have submitted their enumeration forms during the first phase of SIR.
According to the Commission, 7 lakh voters have enrolled at multiple places, while 35 lakh were found to have "permanently migrated or gone untraceable; another 22 lakh have been reported to be deceased.
The INDIA bloc has strongly opposed the enumeration exercise and charged it was being conducted to help the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming polls. The opposition charged over 60 lakh electors will lose their voting rights at the end of the exercise.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi accused the the Commission of indulging in 'vote chori' for the BJP. He said the party has uncovered evidence which he likened to an "atom bomb".
"I have said 'vote chori' is happening and now we have open and shut proof that the Election Commission is involved in 'vote chori'," Gandhi said.
"I am not saying this lightly. I am saying this with 100 per cent proof. As soon as we release it the whole country would know that EC is indulging in 'vote chori'. It is doing it for the BJP," he charged.
"We believe that vote theft has happened at the state level (in Maharashtra). Voter revision had happened and crore voters were added. Then we went into detail seeing that the EC is not helping and decided to dig deep into this," he said. "We got our own investigation done, it took six months and what we have found is an atom bomb. When it explodes, the EC would have no place to hide in the country," the Congress leader said.
India