‘Investigate, don’t intimidate’: Congress on Election Commission press conference

Shortly after the Election Commission held a press conference defending the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, the Congress on Sunday asked the poll panel to “investigate” the allegations raised by Opposition parties and not to “intimidate” them.

Jairam Ramesh, the party general secretary in charge of communications, also claimed that the Election Commission stood “thoroughly exposed” for its “incompetence and blatant partisanship”.

He further described as “laughable” the statement by the Election Commission that it makes no distinction between the ruling party and the Opposition.

Earlier in the day, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar claimed that a deliberate attempt was being made to spread confusion by ignoring the ground reality of the voter roll revision.

“For EC neither anyone is Opposition nor ruling party,” Kumar said. “There is no discrimination between parties, all are the same.”

He also said that no political party had lodged objections so far after the draft roll was published on August 1. Kumar added that the main purpose of the revision exercise was to “purify” the voter list, adding that it was carried out after receiving several complaints from political parties.

However, The Hindu had quoted workers of political parties as saying on August 9 that they had filed several complaints.

Party workers had told the newspaper that when they flag the deletion of names of eligible voters through complaints, the electoral registration officers tell them to ask the voters to submit Form 6, which is for the registration of new voters.

In a social media post on Sunday, Ramesh asked if the poll panel would fully implement the Supreme Court’s Thursday order directing that the list prepared after the revision of voter rolls should be displayed on the websites of the state’s district electoral officers and the chief electoral officer.

“It is constitutionally bound to do so,” Ramesh said. “The nation is waiting and watching.”

The Congress leader also alleged that the poll panel had failed to address the concerns raised by Rahul Gandhi and pointed out that the claims made by the leader of the Opposition were based on the Election Commission’s data.

During the press conference, Kumar cited a 2019 ruling of the Supreme Court to say that machine-readable voter lists cannot be released as they could violate the privacy of voters.

The Election Commission’s press conference coincided with the launch of the Congress’ 16-day Voter Adhikar Yatra, or a voter rights march, in poll-bound Bihar against alleged fraud during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

On claims made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that his party had found discrepancies in more than one lakh names in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency, Kumar said that an affidavit would have to be submitted or an apology made to the country.

“There is no third option,” he said. “If the affidavit is not received within seven days, it means that all these allegations are baseless.”

EC facilitating ‘vote theft’: Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi on Sunday alleged that the poll panel was colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party to carry out “vote theft” under the guise of revising electoral rolls in Bihar.

He said he was not afraid of Election Commission officials and vowed not to allow the alleged theft of votes.

Speaking in Aurangabad at the end of the first day of his voter rights march, Gandhi said that while he was asked to submit an affidavit on his claims about alleged electoral fraud, no such demand had been made of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Anurag Thakur, who made similar allegations in a separate press conference.

Bihar voter roll revision

The revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar was announced by the Election Commission on June 24. As part of the exercise, persons whose names were not on the 2003 voter list needed to submit proof of eligibility to vote.

The draft voter roll was published on August 1 ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls expected to take place in October or November. The list will be revised by September after the Election Commission assesses objections and claims about the exclusion and inclusion of voters in the draft roll.

On Thursday, the Election Commission was directed by the Supreme Court to publish a district-wise list of the 65 lakh Bihar voters whose names were removed from the draft along with the reason for each deletion such as death, migration or double registration.

Sharing the list and the reasons for deletions will improve “voter confidence” in the institution, the court said.

The bench said that the documents should be searchable based on the Elector Photo Identity Card numbers.

Scroll had reported on August 9 that the Election Commission had replaced the digital draft voter lists in Bihar with scanned images of the voter lists on its official websites.

The digital draft lists are machine-readable and easier to analyse for errors and patterns on a large scale. The scanned versions make this process harder.

On Saturday, the poll panel said that political parties or individuals who had concerns about electoral rolls prepared in the past should have raised them during the claims and objections period. It did not name any political party or person in the statement.

On August 7, Gandhi said that his party had spent six months examining the electoral rolls in Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency and found discrepancies in more than one lakh names.

He alleged that this was evidence of the poll panel having colluded with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Election Commission had on Wednesday dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as “false and misleading”.

Also read:

• Higher exclusion of Hindus than Muslims in Bihar draft roll, shows Scroll analysis

• Highest exclusion in Bihar draft roll: Women, Muslim-dominant districts