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]]>Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said the extension was granted to ensure transparency and give voters adequate opportunity to verify their details ahead of the ongoing Assembly election preparations. He clarified that the entire process is being carried out in a time bound and transparent manner.
According to officials, the draft electoral roll was published on February 27. Notices were issued to nearly nine percent of voters whose verification was required. So far, hearings have been completed for a large number of these cases, while the remaining hearings will conclude by March 27.
Rinwa stated that names will not be removed from the voter list without due process. Any deletion will only take place after proper verification and hearings. If a complaint is found to be baseless, no further action will be taken. The Election Commission has instructed Booth Level Officers not to remove names arbitrarily.
Officials also clarified that a voter can raise objections only within the same Assembly constituency. Each voter is allowed to submit only one form with supporting documents. Political parties have submitted a large number of Booth Level Agent forms, with Form 10 submissions crossing 5.79 lakh.
As of now, more than 9.50 lakh voters have submitted Form 8 for correction of details such as name and address. On February 5 alone, a record 59,840 Form 8 applications were received.
Door to door verification is also underway. Notices are being delivered to around 3.26 crore voters, including approximately 2.22 crore migrated voters. Booth Level Officers are visiting households to verify details and resolve cases through document verification.
The Election Commission has also increased the number of Assistant Electoral Registration Officers to speed up hearings. The total number of AEROs has now risen to 8,990 from 6,948 earlier.
Officials added that 1.04 crore voters who were not part of the 2003 electoral roll and 2.22 crore migrated voters are currently under verification. Notices have already reached over 86.27 lakh households, and hearings for more than 30.30 lakh cases have been completed.
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]]>The post Supreme Court Urges Election Commission to Address Errors in Bihar’s Final Electoral Roll appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said the Election Commission, as a responsible constitutional authority, must take corrective action and ensure the accuracy of the electoral roll. The court will next hear the legal matters related to the SIR process on November 4
During the hearing, the ECI informed the court that since the publication of the final electoral roll on September 30, not a single voter has filed an appeal against the deletion of their name.
However, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), contested the Commission’s statement. He said that details of a voter whose name was allegedly omitted from the final list — earlier dismissed as “fake” by the EC during the October 7 hearing — were, in fact, genuine.
Bhushan urged the ECI to disclose the total number of voters deleted and the reasons behind such revisions to ensure full transparency in the process.
The bench noted that voter lists will be frozen on October 17 for constituencies voting in the first phase and on October 20 for those voting in the second phase of the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections.
Earlier, on October 7, the Supreme Court had asked the Election Commission to submit details of 3.66 lakh voters who were included in the draft list but excluded from the final one after the SIR exercise, citing “confusion” surrounding the matter.
According to the ECI, Bihar’s final electoral roll, published on September 30, recorded a reduction of about 47 lakh voters, bringing the total number down from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore. However, the final figure still showed an increase of 17.87 lakh voters compared to the 7.24 crore electors listed in the draft roll issued on August 1.
The Commission explained that 65 lakh names were removed from the original list due to reasons such as death, migration, or duplication, while 21.53 lakh new voters were added. After removing 3.66 lakh names, the net gain stood at 17.87 lakh voters.
The Bihar Assembly elections are scheduled for November 6 in 121 constituencies, with the remaining 122 seats going to polls on November 11. The counting of votes will take place on November 14.
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