Patna: People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Bihar on Wednesday apprehended that the Election Commission of India (ECI) would miss out its main objective of ensuring all eligible people were included in the voters’ list if the poll officials fail to reach out slum dwellers and other marginalised sections of the society
Demanding that the special intensive revision (SIR) must be stopped and its constitutionality should be examined by a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, PUCL Bihar General Secretary, Sarfaraz, and PUCL national vice president Prof Pushpendra Kumar Singh told a press conference that Bihar assembly elections should be conducted on the basis of final electoral roll published by the ECI on the January 7, based on the summary revision of electoral rolls.
Expressing their concerns over the ongoing SIR process after PUCL conducted an investigation of the draft electoral rolls with the support of Democratic Charkha and Samar Youths, PUCL representatives said that a household survey was conducted in three slums: Kanhaiya Nagar and Isopur (both under Phulwarisharif assembly constituency) and Sabri Nagar (under Danapur assembly constituency).
A team from three organisations randomly picked up 262 EPIC numbers and visited their households between August 1 and 5 as their status was checked
“Of the 262 eligible voters surveyed, in the case of 17 per cent (45 voters), though their names appear in the draft list on the ECI website, they have been asked to contact their BLO and submit documents. Upon our enquiry, they told us they had submitted the required documents along with the forms,” PUCL representatives added.
In 8 percent of cases (21 voters), despite filling the form and submitting the required documents, the names of eligible voters have been deleted, and they are asked to contact their BLO and proceed to fill out Form 6. Four persons whose names were found in the draft roll are dead. In the case of one person, his name appeared twice in the draft roll.
“Those covered under the survey told us that the BLOs did not visit them at their residence to verify their status. Thus, the electoral roll was error-free only in 73 per cent of cases, i.e., 191 voters. The margin of error in our investigation was a whopping 27 per cent, more than one quarter of voters. PUCL submitted the complete list of such 71 cases to the state chief electoral officer’s office on August 7 through a memorandum,” they added.
“Numbers apart, the most worrying fact emerging from our investigation is that those eligible voters, who are required to submit their documents and whose names have been deleted and asked to fill form 6, did not know their voter status until the PUCL informed them. No BLO or any other official of the ECI had contacted them. Thus, the burden of checking their voter status has been completely shifted to the voters,” they claimed.
