Bihar electoral list row: Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on July 17 claimed that the Election Commission has been caught “red handed” stealing votes in the name of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. The Congress leader asked whether the poll body has completely become BJP’s ‘Election chori branch’.
Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, have raised questions on the poll panel’s ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
The Congress party has dubbed it ‘a rigging attempt’ orchestrated by the Election Commission under instructions from the ruling regime, while the Trinamool Congress accused the poll panel of trying to implement the contentious NRC, or the National Register of Citizens, through ‘backdoors’ to seek documentary evidence of citizenship from some people.
“Election Commission in Bihar has been caught red handed stealing votes in the name of ‘SIR’. Work – just theft but name is ‘SIR’ and FIR will be lodged against the one who exposes it!” Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X along with a post by independent Ajit Anjum, whose YouTube channel is running a series on special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.
‘Is EC still ‘Election Commission’ or has it completely become BJP’s ‘Election Chori’ branch?” the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
Anjum has been accused of spreading communal tensions in Begusarai district by the local administration, allegations that he has denied.
The poll panel has all along maintained that the revision, being held after 22 years, will cleanse the voters’ list of ineligible people, duplicate entries and include those eligible as per law to vote.
On Wednesday, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar thanked the eligible voters of Bihar for their active participation in the “much-needed” cleaning of the electoral rolls during SIR.
Kumar’s remarks came in the backdrop of the Supreme Court hearing a clutch of pleas questioning the intent behind the SIR ahead of the assembly polls in the state later this year.
Th Supreme Court on July 10 allowed the Election Commission of India to continue with its revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar. The top court, however, asked the poll panel to consider using the Aadhaar card, the election card, and the ration card as valid documents for voter identification.
‘Attempts to hijack elections in Bihar’
Last week, Gandhi alleged that attempts were being made to hijack elections in Bihar on the lines of Maharashtra. Gandhi made these remarks while addressing a Congress rally in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
“Like Maharashtra, attempts are being made to hijack elections in Bihar,” Rahul Gandhi alleged at a Congress rally in Bhubaneswar.
Gandhi had earlier alleged irregularities in the Maharashtra voter list – ‘large-scale additions and deletions of voters.’
In February, Gandhi alleged that after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections (which the INDIA bloc won in June), almost 70 lakh new voters” suddenly arrived in Maharashtra ahead of the Vidhan Sabha polls [Assembly polls in He later claimed that, “Between the 2019 Vidhan Sabha elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 32 lakh voters were added to Maharashtra’s electoral rolls over five years.”
