NEW DELHI: Amid raging political controversy over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral roll, the Election Commission on July 3 said it has decoded the entire exercise to a group of Opposition parties to clear doubts in their minds.The poll panel, led by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, had met representatives of various political parties here on July 2 and heard their concerns, issues and queries and decoded for them the entire SIR process.In an official statement the ECI said, “Representatives of the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, DMK, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, Communist Party of India and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackrey) had met the poll panel.”It said that the poll panel told the parties that the exercise is being held in a planned, structured and phased manner to facilitate the inclusion of all eligible citizens, as in the first phase (From June 25 to July 3), enumeration forms are being printed and distributed to approximately 7.90 crore electors in Bihar.Electoral registration officers are making available partially pre-filled forms, based on existing records, through the nearly 78,000 booth-level officers (BLOs) pressed into action, it added.The BLOs are delivering the enumeration forms door-to-door to all the electors, whose names are on the electoral roll as on June 24 and Booth level agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties can also submit up to 50 certified forms per day.In the second phase, the enumeration forms will be filled out and are to be submitted before July 25. To support this process, nearly four lakh volunteers are available to assist voters alongside the BLOs.“Electors whose names exist in the electoral roll as on January 1, 2003 are only required to submit the enumeration forms along with an extract of the roll. They don’t have to submit any other document,” the EC reiterated in the statement, adding that those not listed in the 2003 roll “will need to submit one of 11 documents for their date of birth/place of birth”.
Source link
