New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued nearly three lakh notices in Bihar after large-scale discrepancies were detected in voter identity documents during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
According to sources, the verification process revealed that nationals from Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and even Afghanistan had managed to obtain Indian voter identity cards. The irregularities were flagged by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) during house-to-house checks carried out across the state.
“A thorough verification will continue till August 30, and names found ineligible will be removed before the final voter list is published on September 30,” an ECI official said. Reports indicate that many of the foreign nationals possessed multiple supporting documents, including Aadhaar, ration cards, and domicile certificates, raising concerns about loopholes in document verification.
Each elector who has been served a notice is required to appear before authorities within seven days to clarify or rectify their records. So far, the poll body has received 1,95,802 applications for inclusion or deletion of names from draft rolls, with nearly 25,000 already disposed of. However, the ECI has not clarified how many cases involve fresh inclusions versus removals.
Political parties have begun responding to the issue. While the CPI(ML) has filed 79 petitions and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) three, no other recognised state or national party including the BJP and Congress has submitted objections yet, though three days remain in the claims-and-objections period.
The draft electoral roll was published on August 1, after the SIR exercise began on June 24. According to the ECI, documents of 99.11% of Bihar’s 7.24 crore voters have already been verified, with 98.2% submitting their papers by August 24.
The matter is also under judicial scrutiny. The Supreme Court has directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar or any of 11 other listed identity documents for voter inclusion, while the Commission has urged the court to trust its ongoing verification process.
