Bihar SIR row hearing LIVE: Supreme Court to continue hearing of pleas today
In the previous hearing, Justice Joymalya Bagchi summarised the petitioners' argument that it was a battle between Constitutional entitlement and Constitutional right. The petitioners argued that the Election Commission did not have the right to decide on citizenship, nor de facto remove an elector for the list.
Also read: Bihar draft rolls are not helpful in finding new, existing voters
The draft roll was published on August 1, with the final list scheduled for release on September 30, amid Opposition allegations that the exercise will disenfranchise crores of eligible voters.
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The Hindu
21 minutes ago
- The Hindu
No foreign voters in Bihar SIR list; Modi brings divisive agenda: CPI(ML)
Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has welcomed the interim order of the Supreme Court on the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voters list in Bihar. He said the Election Commission of India (ECI) is forced to back off from its stand on the matter and hoped that the poll body will ensure transparency in preparing voters' lists and provide details for the reasons of the omission of voters published in the draft list. Countering Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement on Independence Day that illegal immigration is threatening the country's demography, Mr. Bhattacharya said the SIR exercise in Bihar did not bring out a single case of illegal immigrants in the State. 'PM Modi gave his longest Independence Day speech, but the important point is that the theme of Independence Day is now being reduced to partition. It is as if the government is trying to finish the incomplete agenda of partition,' he said. He maintained that out of the 65 lakh voters who have been disenfranchised, no one was a foreign national. 'But once again, Modi ji has brought back that agenda, completely unsubstantiated, the bogey of illegal immigration, infiltration. And the things that they are doing to change our demography, taking away all jobs, occupying land, getting married to women and forcing conversion. This is a total anti-immigrant agenda of the RSS and BJP. This is what led to partition, perhaps they want another partition...' he said. He asked how the Centre concluded on the number of foreign nationals entering India illegally, when there has been no Census since 2011. 'It has created a tone of terror in the country, it has created major insecurity, and when you sort of view it together with the ongoing SIR, the backdoor NRC, the ongoing so-called police verification drive, the MHA circular, so it creates before us the danger of a huge social division and the creation of a permanent category of disenfranchised people,' he said.
The Hindu
21 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Major irregularities in 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls, claims Vote for Democracy report
Vote for Democracy (VFD), a civic action group led by distinguished experts, has released a constituency-level analysis of Maharashtra's 288 Assembly seats, highlighting serious anomalies in the November 2024 election. The report, titled 'Dysfunctional ECI and Weaponisation of India's Election System', draws on official Election Commission of India (ECI) and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) data as well as accounts from polling staff and voters, raising questions about transparency and accountability. The civic group is guided by election experts M.G. Devasahayam, IAS (retired), Coordinator of Citizens' Commission on Elections; Professor Pyara Lal Garg, former Dean, Panjab University; Madhav Deshpande, specialist in computer software and architecture, and Professor Harish Karnick, former Professor, Computer Science, IIT-Kanpur. Systemic vulnerabilities The report released on Saturday (August 16, 2025) states that the 'weaponisation' of India's electoral system lies in the vulnerabilities of four components of the electronic voting process — microchips that record votes, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs), Symbol Loading Units (SLUs), and electoral rolls. According to VFD, the system has ceased to be standalone since 2017 and is now linked to the internet, making it susceptible to manipulation. It further alleges that the ECI's methods of managing voter rolls have created large-scale disenfranchisement, cumulatively posing a serious threat to electoral democracy. VFD notes that in the November 2024 polls, Maharashtra recorded a sudden late-night surge in turnout. At 5 p.m., voter turnout stood at 58.22%, but by midnight it had risen to 66.05%, a jump of 7.83%, which amounted to about 48 lakh extra votes. The sharpest increases were recorded in Nanded, Jalgaon, Hingoli, Solapur, Beed, and Dhule, where double-digit spikes were observed, even though historically such late surges have been minimal. The report also points out that several seats were decided by very narrow margins, with 25 seats won by fewer than 3,000 votes and 69 seats by fewer than 10,000 votes, suggesting that even small anomalies could have changed outcomes. Erratic changes The study highlights erratic changes in the electoral roll between the May 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the November 2024 Assembly polls. In just six months, the rolls expanded by more than 46 lakh voters, concentrated across 12,000 polling booths in 85 constituencies, predominantly in areas where the BJP had lost in the parliamentary elections. Some booths reportedly added more than 600 voters after 5 p.m., which would have implied an additional ten hours of polling that did not occur in reality. Official records also showed discrepancies, with the ECI reporting over 9.64 crore voters on August 30, 2024, while the CEO of Maharashtra reported 9.53 crore for the same date. Within weeks, these numbers fluctuated sharply, with a sudden increase of over 16 lakh voters between October 15 and October 30, 2024. According to the report, the data mismatches between 2019 and 2024 are also significant. In 2019, Maharashtra's voter rolls for the Assembly polls were larger than those for the Lok Sabha polls by about 11.6 lakh voters, while votes polled increased by 8.4 lakh between the two elections. In 2024, however, the discrepancy was far higher, with rolls growing by nearly 40 lakh voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls and votes polled increasing by more than 71 lakh in the same period. The report notes that voter rolls grew by 71.8 lakh between the 2019 and 2024 Assembly elections, while votes polled jumped by 96.7 lakh, a rise not explained by demographic trends. The report further observes sudden and disproportionate vote surges that benefited specific parties. In the Lok Sabha elections held in May 2024, the BJP averaged about 88,713 votes per Assembly segment, whereas in the Assembly elections in November the average rose to 1,16,064 votes per seat, reflecting a sudden gain of 28,000 votes per seat without corresponding demographic growth. For example, in Kamthi, the Congress vote remained at about 1.35 lakh while the BJP gained 56,000 votes, and in Karad (South) the tally rose by 41,000 votes in just six months, a change not seen in five years. In Nanded, the Congress won the parliamentary seat but lost all six Assembly segments in the same area, receiving 1.59 lakh fewer votes despite simultaneous polling. In high-profile seats VFD also draws attention to high-profile anomalies, such as the addition of 29,219 voters in Nagpur South-West in six months, exceeding the ECI's 4% verification threshold, with local booth officials admitting incomplete checks. In Solapur's Markadwadi village, residents alleged that the EVM results did not reflect the actual votes cast, while police blocked a mock poll using paper ballots. The report mentions several procedural and technical concerns, including the presence of routers near polling stations, sudden power cuts during counting, late arrival of EVMs at strong rooms, failures of CCTV surveillance, mismatches between Form 17C records and control unit counts, unexplained EVM battery readings, and alleged breaches of strong rooms. It questions whether the ECI has independent control over the EVM source code and highlights potential conflicts of interest, noting that BJP members sit on the boards of ECIL and BEL, the manufacturers of EVMs. Amending ECI rules Concerns were also raised about data secrecy and legal changes curtailing scrutiny. In December 2024, the ECI amended Rule 93 of the Conduct of Election Rules to restrict access to CCTV footage and Form 17C, just days after a court ordered their release in another State's polls. In May 2025, the retention period for CCTV footage was reduced from one year to 45 days, allowing evidence to be destroyed before legal challenges could proceed. Despite 100% webcasting of polling stations, neither video footage nor VVPAT slips are available for public verification. The report further says that over 100 complaints of hate speech were filed during the Maharashtra polls, including against specific leaders, but no visible action was taken by the ECI. VFD concludes that the scale, precision, and constituency-specific targeting of these anomalies point to a structured pattern of electoral manipulation rather than administrative error. It warns that Maharashtra's 2024 Assembly elections serve as a case study of how India's election system can be weaponised, and calls the findings a warning for future polls across the country. Call for decentralisation The organisation has demanded that the voter system be decentralised, with the ECI conducting only parliamentary and presidential elections while State Election Commissions conduct Assembly and local polls. It has also called for a forensic audit of EVMs, VVPATs, and voter rolls, public release of machine-readable rolls and election records, reversal of restrictive amendments to Rule 93, and legislative guarantees for end-to-end vote verifiability.
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First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
Brazil's ex-President Bolsonaro leaves house arrest for medical exams ahead of coup trial
Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro briefly left house arrest on Saturday to undergo medical tests in Brasilia, weeks before the Supreme Court rules on whether he plotted a coup to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat. Brazil's ex-president Jair Bolsonaro left his home where he is under house arrest Saturday to undergo medical exams, weeks before the Supreme Court rules whether he is guilty of plotting a coup. The right-wing politician is accused of attempting to hold power despite his 2022 electoral defeat by Brazil's current leftist leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro, 70, has been under house arrest since early August for violating a judicial ban on using social networks to plead his case to the public. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD A judge agreed to temporarily lift that measure so he could get medical attention for what Bolsonaro's attorneys said were gastrointestinal problems resulting from a 2018 stabbing attack while he campaigned for president. In particular, their request noted his chronic 'reflux and hiccup symptoms' and need to go to hospital for tests, including an intestinal endoscopy. Bolsonaro arrived on Saturday morning at a medical center in the capital Brasilia, where he briefly greeted around 20 supporters waiting for him outside with Brazilian, Israeli and US flags. He did not address journalists who were also gathered. Bolsonaro was permitted by the court to remain in hospital for eight hours before returning to his Brasilia residence. Brazil's Supreme Court will begin deciding on September 2 on the coup charges against Bolsonaro, who led Latin America's largest country from 2019 to 2022. He faces up to 40 years in prison if found guilty. Bolsonaro has maintained his innocence and earned support from US President Donald Trump, who has called the trial a 'witch hunt.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Citing Bolsonaro's 'politically motivated persecution,' Trump has signed an executive order slapping 50 percent tariffs on many Brazilian imports.
