Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, on Sunday raised serious concerns over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list in Bihar and the possible deletion of names from the electoral rolls.
Addressing a joint press conference of the INDIA Alliance in Patna, Tejashwi alleged that the Election Commission has manipulated the booth data on the instructions of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He claimed that if even one per cent of voters are left out during the verification process, nearly 7.9 lakh voters across the state could lose their right to vote. This means around 3,251 voters could be removed from each assembly segment.
He pointed out that during the 2020 assembly elections, the RJD lost 52 seats by margins of just around 5,000 votes. About 40 seats saw an extremely close contest where the margin of victory was less than 3,500. Some of these recorded a victory margin of fewer than 1,000 votes.
“If 3,200 votes are cut in each assembly, it can make a big difference,” he said.
The RJD leader also alleged that the Election Commission of India has been making misleading claims about the process, and asserted that the Election Commission’s claim of 80.11 per cent of voters filling the enumeration form is completely contrary to the ground reality.
He said that the ECI’s claim is unbelievable because a large number of these voters are residing outside Bihar for employment and study. He asked the ECI to clarify who filled their enumeration forms if they were not present in Bihar.
He said that the claims being made by the Election Commission may be a report of their self-satisfaction and numerical achievements, but it does not clear the doubts growing among the public.
Tejashwi said: “The Election Commission has failed to acknowledge how many of these forms have been filled in a verified, voluntary, and valid manner. The Election Commission has not told how many enumeration forms have been uploaded without documents or without the direct participation of the voter.”
He added: “The ECI has also not clarified how many of these 4.66 crore digitised forms have been verified by Aadhaar. That is why the Election Commission is silent on the possibilities of fake uploading.”