CPI(ML) Presents First Evidence of Wrongful Deletions in SIR
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New Delhi: The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPI(ML)), which along with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress has been at the forefront of opposition to the “special intensive revision” (SIR) exercise conducted by the Election Commission (EC) in Bihar, has now presented prima facie evidence of the unlawful deletion of voters in a few assembly constituencies, which its workers have physically verified.
Interestingly, the first two complaints the CPI(ML) has filed amid its verification exercise on the ground relates to voter deletions in villages that are predominantly Yadav – a community that is believed to be a source of support for the Rashtriya Janata Dal. The party also found a number of deleted voters belonging to different Dalit communities.
The party in a press statement showcased a complaint filed by one Amit Kumar Paswan, a political worker who is also booth-level assistant, with the district magistrate of Darbhanga, Bihar.
Paswan claimed in his complaint that 20 of the 59 voters who had been deleted from the draft electoral rolls in the Bandh Basti village that falls under the Bahadurpur assembly seat were found to be alive and living in the same village.
“There are a total of 818 voters present in the booth. A total of 59 names were deleted from the draft SIR list out of these 818 voters. Out of these 59 people, CPI(ML) teams on the ground have identified 20 such people living in the same booth, whose presence has been physically verified,” the party said.
A list containing the names of those who were found in the village but have been deleted from the draft rolls. Photo by arrangement.
It added: “What is surprising about this deletion is that two people – Motilal Yadav and Dhyani Yadav, serial numbers 1 and 10 in the complaint copy – had their names in the 2003 voter list, and yet they are part of the mass disenfranchisement done by the EC.”
The party has alleged that the SIR exercise is a part of a conspiracy to disenfranchise marginalised people and has termed it “votebandi”.
The EC has said that 65 lakh names have been deleted from the draft SIR list, which will be revised after the poll body assesses objections and counter-claims by September.
CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya posted a similar claim on his Facebook page, where he posted copies of five complaints by electors in one assembly seat in Arrah district who were wrongfully deleted from the draft electoral rolls.
It also circulated a video in which a CPI(ML) worker is seen interviewing a few deleted voters from one predominantly Yadav village called Dharachayak in the Phulwari assembly seat.
The party claimed that 180 voters were deleted from booth numbers 83 and 84 in this village and that a majority of them were found living in their houses. It asked what the extent of the “disenfranchisement” in over 90,000 booths across the state would be if such a pattern is seen in a single village.
“The mass disenfranchisement is a blot on our constitution and our democracy. Despite many letters and requests made, the EC has not listed the reasons for the deletion of the names. This is the same pattern across various districts in Bihar. Despite filing complaints with district officials and state officials, the “complaints” column in the EC press release fails to record these numbers. This only raises our suspicion that the effort of the EC is to suppress the truth and present a picture that paints the opposition parties in a bad light,” the party said in its statement.
It also claimed that those people whose names have been deleted are being forced by EC officials to fill Form 6, which is meant to enroll new voters.
“CPI(ML) has been repeatedly raising this issue of how Form 6 is being forced on people whose votes have been deleted, leaving no mechanism to file complaints and thereby allowing the EC to issue daily press releases showing zero complaints filed,” the party said in its statement.
It demanded that the EC “immediately put up the draft voter rolls, especially the names of deleted voters, specifying grounds for deletion (death, permanent migration, duplication, untraceability) in every panchayat for everyone to access.”
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