Attempts to tarnish ECI image can't deter it from being impartial: CEC Gyanesh Kumar

New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday reiterated the poll panel’s commitment to impartiality, and dismissed allegations of “vote chori”, saying politics being done in the name of the ECI would not deter it from performing its constitutional obligations transparently.

Describing the Bihar Special Intensive Review (SIR) exercise as completely transparent, CEC Kumar said, “Rumours are being spread about the exercise even though draft voter lists have already been given to political parties.”

Either the parties’ Booth Level Agents are not getting the draft voter list for verification, or politics is being done to target the ECI in an attempt to tarnish its image.

“There is no question of the ECI’s image being tarnished as over seven crore voters and all stakeholders are standing firmly with the poll panel,” he said, adding that attempts to spread misinformation amount to disrespecting the Constitution.

The ECI’s media briefing came on a day when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav launched a “Vote Adhikar Yatra” in Bihar to highlight the alleged missing votes and manipulation in the voter list.

Giving an update, the CEC said that in Bihar, since August 1, over one lakh new electors, who have turned 18 after the SIR exercise, have filed forms for inclusion in the voter list.

Also, the election office has so far received 28,370 claims and objections from electors concerning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar

The ECI concluded the enumeration phase of the SIR from June 24 to July 25. More than 7.24 crore electors -- out of a total of 7.89 crore -- submitted their enumeration forms during the exercise.

At the end, about 65 lakh voters were found to be missing from the draft electoral rolls published on August 1. This included 22 lakh deceased electors (2.83 per cent), 36 lakh (4.59 per cent) who had permanently shifted or not found and seven lakh (0.89 per cent) who had enrolled at more than one place, ECI data showed.

The SIR exercise in Bihar has been attacked by the Opposition parties over alleged irregularities, which they allege threaten to deprive lakhs of voters of their right to vote - a charge denied by the ECI.

The poll panel published its draft electoral rolls on August 1 and has kept a window of one month for people, parties and their booth-level agents BLAs to bring their complaints and grievances regarding inclusion or exclusion from the draft electoral list.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has 47,506 BLAs, the Congress has 17,549, and the Left has over 2,000, all adding up to over 67,000.

The ECI has been routinely reaching out to political parties to join the revision exercise and bring to its notice instances of disenfranchisement, if any.

“Submit your claims and objections to rectify any errors in the draft Electoral Roll of Bihar published on August 1. So far, not even a single claim or objection has been submitted by any political party,” the EC had said earlier.

The ECI highlighted that between June 23 and July 25, the Congress has increased its BLAs to 17,549 (an increase of 105 per cent), Rashtriya Janata Dal to 47,506 (an increase of one per cent), Janata Dal (United) to 36,550 (an increase of 31 per cent) and BJP to 53,338 (an increase by 3 per cent).

--IANS

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