The Election Commission filed an additional affidavit in the Supreme Court on matters related to electoral roll revision in Bihar. The poll body alleged that the Opposition was deliberately building false narratives to malign the image of the constitutional body.
The Commission filed an additional affidavit on matters related to Bihar SIR in the apex court on Saturday. While the INDIA bloc alleged the intensive electoral roll revision would lead to disenfranchisement of 65 lakh voters in poll-bound Bihar, the poll body accused the petitioners of deliberately misleading the court.
The Commission told the Court that the exclusion of a name from the draft electoral roll does not amount to the deletion of an individual from the electoral rolls. "On account of human involvement in the execution of this exercise of scale, there is always a possibility that an exclusion or inclusion might surface due to inadvertence or error," it said.
The EC said booth-level list of individuals whose enumeration forms were not received has been shared with political parties. It alleged that the petitioner's approach was consistent with its earlier attempts to malign EC by building false narratives on digital, print and social media.
"Such attempts should be appropriately dealt with by this court, and heavy costs should be imposed for the petitioner's attempts to deliberately mislead this court," it said.
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The poll body said political parties were supplied with an updated list of names of electors not included in the draft roll after its publication, so as to ensure that all attempts are made to reach out to them. "The political parties have acknowledged receipt of the said list," it said.
The EC said, "In yet another attempt to mislead this court, the petitioners emphatically assert that a person whose name has been excluded from the draft roll has no recourse to a remedy as he/she cannot file a claim or objection". The Commission said it expressly provides for the inclusion of individuals whose enumeration forms have not been submitted within the specified time.
The Supreme Court is hearing a bunch of petitions filed by Opposition parties against the special intensive electoral roll revision in poll-bound Bihar. The Opposition alleges the exercise would lead to disenfranchisement of 65 lakh voters from the voters' list. The Commission published the draft electoral roll for Bihar on August 1. The apex court has set date for final hearing in the matter on August 12 and 13.
