Had tea with 'dead people' because of EC: Rahul Gandhi attacks poll body over Bihar voter list row
A group of seven voters from Bihar met the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha at his residence and shared their experience of how they were declared "dead" by the EC and their names removed from the electoral rolls.
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"There have been many interesting experiences in life, but I never got the chance to have tea with 'dead people'. For this unique experience, thank you Election Commission!" Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.
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He also shared a video of his meeting with the "dead" voters. In it, Gandhi is heard telling them to move around and see Delhi as the "dead" cannot even be charged tickets.
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In the video, some individuals told Rahul Gandhi that they had been 'declared dead' by the Election Commission during the special intensive revision (SIR) and were among the 65 lakh voters removed from the electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
They also informed him that they had appeared before the Supreme Court on Wednesday to seek restoration of their voting rights. The apex court is currently hearing petitions challenging the SIR process in Bihar.
In a statement, the Congress later said that seven voters from Bihar — all alive — shared tea with Rahul Gandhi, even though the Election Commission's SIR list had marked them as 'dead.' The voters — Ramikbal Ray, Harendra Ray, Lalmuni Devi, Vachiya Devi, Lalwati Devi, Punam Kumari, and Munna Kumar — are all residents of Raghopur, the constituency of Tejashwi Yadav.
"They have been removed from the electoral rolls despite having completed the requisite paperwork for the SIR.
"The Election Commission has not openly published lists of the people whom it has declared dead, migrated, etc. Our teams on the ground were able to identify these people only because they managed to informally get EC's internal report in two to three polling booths," the Congress said.
These seven represent only a fraction of "unjustly" deleted voters in two to three polling booths in the constituency, it added.
"This is not a clerical error - it is political disenfranchisement in plain sight.
"After 'Vote Chori' was exposed in Bengaluru, it is clear that the Bihar SIR exercise is also compromised. When the living are struck off as dead, the death certificate is issued to democracy itself," the Congress said.
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