Cong submitted 89 lakh complaints during SIR but all rejected, claims Khera

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has come under sharp criticism from the Congress over its handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.

At a press conference in Patna on Saturday, senior Congress leader Pawan Khera produced receipts which he said were stamped acknowledgements from District Electoral Officers, countering the Commission’s assertion that there had been “zero complaints.”

According to Khera, the Congress filed nearly 89 lakh complaints during the revision process. “We do not want any illegal voter on the rolls, but at the same time, no rightful voter should be deleted, whether deliberately or inadvertently,” he said. The party demanded that all deletions be subject to fresh verification.

The Congress alleged that the Commission refused to accept objections from Booth Level Agents (BLAs) and insisted that complaints be filed only by individuals, not political parties. Still, the party claimed, district presidents managed to secure signed receipts of complaints.

Providing details, Khera said that of the deletions, 25 lakh names were struck off citing migration, 22 lakh as dead, 9.7 lakh as “not found,” and seven lakh as duplicates. He alleged disturbing patterns in the deletions: over 20,600 booths witnessed the removal of more than 100 names each; in nearly 2,000 booths, more than 200 names were struck off.

Particularly striking, he noted, was the disproportionate impact on women. “In 7,613 booths, 70 per cent of the deleted names were women. In 635 booths, more than 75 per cent of those marked as migrants were women. This is strange, because it is men who usually migrate for work,” Khera said.