Row over Bihar SIR: Amid the row over Opposition allegations of “vote theft” in Bihar and the controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, the ECI said a total of 28,370 claims and objections were received during the SIR process, of which 857 have been disposed of. Notably, no political party has submitted any claims or objections in the past 15 days.
Meanwhile, Opposition party MPs marched to EC HQ in Delhi earlier this week against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar and allegations of “voter fraud” during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. However, they were stopped by Delhi Police.
SC seeks transparency
Also, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has agreed to release the names of approximately 65 lakh voters whose names have been deleted. The move follows a Supreme Court directive requiring the list to be made public in a searchable format by Tuesday, 19 August.
The Supreme Court, which began hearing a batch of petitions challenging the SIR exercise earlier this week, emphasised that families of voters whose names have been removed must be informed of the reasons. It also directed that the list be publicised through radio, social media, and other communication channels in Bihar.
“Disclosing names of dead, migrated or shifted electors on a display board or website will give a chance for correction of inadvertent errors,” the bench observed. The justices questioned why such data could not be made available online for public scrutiny within a 30-day period.
Justice Bagchi remarked that having the entire dataset on a public website would allow people to check directly, rather than relying on filtered query results. Justice Kant added that keeping the information only at the local level would leave villagers dependent on officials for clarity.
ECI’s response and implementation plan
The ECI’s counsel told the court it would make the data available on district websites managed by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). The top court further advised that the published list should clearly indicate the reason for deletion such as “dead”, “migrated”, or “shifted” and suggested allowing voters to submit identification documents like Aadhaar or EPIC if they had not done so already.
The poll body maintained that lists of removed names had already been given to political party workers. However, the Supreme Court pressed for a broader public release to enable remedial measures.
Political backlash in poll-bound Bihar
The issue has become a political flashpoint ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections. Opposition parties have accused the ECI of deliberately reducing voter rolls to benefit the BJP-led NDA. In protest, leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and Mahua Moitra staged a march from Parliament to the EC office, resulting in brief detentions.