Bihar elections: Tejaswi Yadav slams PM Modi, Nitish; says electoral rolls revision will snatch voting rights from poor
NEW DELHI: Rashtriya Janata Dal leader
Tejashwi Yadav
on Friday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, accusing them of trying to erase the names of poor and marginalised voters from the electoral rolls.
'The Election Commission has suddenly announced a special intensive revision. This means that the voter list published in February, which had the latest additions and deletions, has now been set aside.'
He said that the entire list of eight crore Bihari voters has been sidelined, and now a fresh voter list will be created from scratch.
He raised doubts over why this process is being conducted with only two months left before the elections and the feasibility of completing it in time.
'This clearly raises a question, why is this being done just two months before the elections? And is it even possible to prepare a fresh voter list of eight crore people within just 25 days?'
'Not only that, documents demanded are what the poor simply don't have,' the RJD leader said.
Tejaswi added that his party will take up the issue with the election commission and send a delegation to present detailed objections in the coming days.
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He further accused PM Modi and Nitish Kumar of conspiring to erase the names of poor and marginalised voters from the electoral rolls under the guise of the EC's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive.
'The matter is clear, Nitish Ji and Modi Ji are scared.Their intention is to get the names of poor people removed from the voter list. In a democracy, the most important right that the poor have is the right to vote. And now the BJP and Nitish Ji want to snatch that right away from the poor, the oppressed, and those on the margins of society, the backbenchers, those who stand at the end of the social ladder.'
Earlier this week, the election commission issued a notification clarifying that the SIR in Bihar aims to ensure inclusion of all eligible voters, eliminate ineligible names, and improve transparency.
It said that factors like rapid urbanisation, migration, deaths, and the risk of illegal foreign entrants are a major reason for the revision. The last such revision in the state took place in 2003.
Meanwhile, Congress has also objected to the exercise. Party spokesperson Pawan Khera accused the EC of acting as a 'puppet' of Prime Minister Modi. 'For a long time, we have been pressuring the Election Commission and saying their process is not transparent. With this new conspiracy, lakhs of people in Bihar and across India will be deprived of their right to vote,' Khera said during a visit to the state.
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