Cong questions timing, intent of EC voter list revision in Bihar

Time of India

4 days ago

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Jodhpur: Alleging that there is an attempt underway to influence the impending elections in Bihar, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Singhvi Saturday targeted the Election Commission's ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists and claimed people whose names were removed would not have enough time to appeal.
Questioning the timing of the electoral roll revision, Singhvi said EC could have undertaken the cleanup of voter lists in Dec, as has been done in earlier years. In the past, the EC carried out this process two years before the elections, so if someone's name was removed, they had the chance to appeal, Singhvi said. "But in Bihar, the way crores of people's names were removed from the voter list is what we are questioning," he added.
Raising questions over EC's intent, Singhvi also said the commission's demand for a signed affidavit from the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, for the anomalies he exposed in voter lists in Karnataka, was an "absurd joke and a mockery of the system." "When Rahul Gandhi raised this issue with the Election Commission, they instead asked him for an affidavit. This is like a situation where a person tells the police that a thief is running away, and the police, instead of acting, asks the complainant to provide an affidavit," Singhvi said, taking a dig at the commission's demand.
He said Congress would raise this issue across the country and highlight how the EC, under BJP's leadership, is violating norms. He said the EC's decision to disregard Aadhar as a valid document for voter verification was surprising since this document was not only issued by the govt but also being accepted as valid for govt verification purposes, except by the EC.
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