Meanwhile, Shakti Singh Yadav, spokesperson for the top opposition party RJD, alleged that the comments made by the Supreme Court while hearing the petition on the SIR exposed the Election Commission.He said the Supreme Court told the EC to consider Aadhaar, voter ID, and ration cards as proof for Bihar poll revision, which the Opposition had been continuously demanding.This will come as a big shock to those who are planning to remove the names of the poor, Dalits, backward, extremely backward, and minorities from the voter list, Yadav claimed.CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, another key Opposition leader in the state and one of the petitioners, issued a statement claiming “the Supreme Court order corroborates the basic fears and objections of the electorate.”Bhattacharya hailed the court’s advice to the EC to include Aadhaar, voter ID cards, and ration cards in the acceptable list of documents as being “in the interest of justice” and voicing “common demand of every voter on the ground.”He also urged the apex court to “take note of two other basic worries”, which include “no acknowledgement receipts upon submission of enumeration forms” and the “risk of disenfranchisement faced by migrant workers”, who may not be in a position to return from their places of work to fill up these forms.However, the Left leader scoffed at the EC for “citing numbers to claim smooth and rapid progress of the drive.”Meanwhile, Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor said that an Indian citizen above the age of 18 under Article 326 had the fundamental right to vote. He said the Election Commission could not deprive anyone of their right to vote by entangling them in useless documents.“We are hopeful of getting justice from the court,” he remarked.PN Jha, a retired central government employee from Patna, said the Election Commission should include Aadhaar, ration card, and voter ID in the list of valid documents for the SIR exercise. He said this would make the exercise easier, as people were currently facing problems due to the exclusion of these documents.Vicky Kumar, a graduate student at Magadh University in Bodh Gaya, said all these cards should be considered valid for the SIR exercise. He added that the revision of electoral rolls should have been held either after the last Lok Sabha elections or after the upcoming assembly polls.
Source link
