Chidambaram criticises EC over final Bihar electoral rolls, poses six questions

New Delhi, Oct 9 (IANS) Amid Congress’ stern criticism of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, senior party leader P. Chidambaram fired a fresh salvo at the poll panel on Thursday, over alleged irregularities in the ‘voter purification’ drive ahead of state Assembly elections.

Chidambaram took to his social media handle on Thursday and posed six questions, raising doubts over the integrity of SIR and demanding that the poll panel give a justifiable answer ‘in the interest of transparency and fairness’.

He, however, added that he was not accusing the ECI of any wrongdoing, but the people of India, as well as Bihar, are entitled to know the answers to various doubts, confusion and suspicion surrounding the voter verification drive, which was hurriedly pushed just ahead of elections.

Chidambaram sought to know answers to questions -- “What is the estimate of the adult population of Bihar according to the Government of India? What proportion of the adult population has been included in the Bihar electoral rolls? Is it 90.7 per cent? What about the remaining 9.3 per cent of the adult population? Why are they not included in the electoral rolls?”

He also asked, “How many names in the electoral rolls are gibberish? Is the number approximately 24,000? How many house numbers in the electoral rolls are blank or obviously invalid? Is the number over 2,00,000? How many names included in the electoral rolls are double or duplicate entries? Is the number approximately 5,20,000?”

The ECI published final electoral rolls for the Bihar elections on September 30, releasing a final list of 7.42 crore registered voters.

However, this has elicited strong protests from the Congress-led Opposition, which accused the poll body of connivance with the ruling party to manipulate electoral outcomes.

It claimed that at least 10 per cent of total deletions of around 67.3 lakh voters happened in just 15 out of 243 Assembly seats.

It also asked the poll body to explain why it was not providing a consolidated list of deleted voters and by booth, and the reasons for the deletions.

--IANS

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