'Congress submitted 89 lakh complaints to ECI during SIR, all rejected'

Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera on Sunday said that a staggering 89 lakh complaints of irregularities were flagged by the party’s Booth Level Agents (BLAs) in Bihar during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, but all were rejected by the Election Commission.

Alleging that the irregularities cast a doubt on the intention of the ECI, Khera demanded that the entire exercise be conducted again.

“The ECI keeps getting news planted through its sources that no complaints are coming from any political party. The truth is that the Congress submitted 89 lakh complaints pertaining to irregularities in the SIR to the EC,” Khera said at a press briefing in Patna.

“When our BLAs went to file complaints, their complaints were turned down by the ECI. The poll panel categorically told our BLAs that complaints could be accepted by individuals only, not by political parties,” Khera said.

The Congress demands that the entire SIR exercise be re-conducted, he said, adding that the large-scale irregularities in the SIR cast a doubt on the intentions of the Election Commission.

“Our BLOs left no stone unturned in filing complaints and objections of those voters whose names were deleted, and all applications were submitted to the District Election Officer (DEOs) concerned,” he said.

The senior Congress leader said that the names of 65 lakh voters of Bihar were deleted from the electoral rolls by the ECI from 90,540 booths in the state.

While 25 lakh voters were deleted due to migration, the names of 22 lakh people were removed as they are not alive. Names of 9,70,000 voters were deleted as they were found absent at the given addresses, he said.

“The total number of booths where more than 100 names were deleted is 20,368, and the number of booths where more than 200 names were deleted is 1,988. There are 7,613 booths where more than 70 per cent of women's names were deleted,” Khera claimed.

There are 635 booths where more than 75 per cent of the deleted names in the migrant category are women, he said, adding that it is very important to verify these figures.

There are plenty of cases where a single voter has been given two EPIC numbers, the senior Congress leader pointed out.

“We also have their receipts, and now this fact cannot be denied. We hope that the data we have provided will be verified by the ECI, and an investigation conducted into that. There is a need for door-to-door verification again to correct these mistakes,” he added.

However, the office of the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer denied the charges, saying, “Till date, no BLA authorised by any district president of the Indian National Congress in Bihar has submitted any claim (Form 6) or objection (Form 7) on any name in the draft electoral rolls published on August 1 in the prescribed format so far”.