Special voter intensive revision i.e. SIR run by the Election Commission in Bihar has been completed. The opposition of SIR is going on from Bihar Legislative Assembly to Parliament. However, amidst sharp opposition from the opposition, the Election Commission has made it clear that SIR will not be limited to Bihar. Assembly elections are to be held in the states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam next year. Only Assam has a BJP government. The remaining states have governments of opposition parties. She has already become alert and wants to make SIR a national issue.
In fact, the opposition is misleading the countrymen on the SIR as part of the strategy. From the road to the Parliament, he is opposing the SIR, and is leaving the Election Commission from indecent rhetoric to accusation. Whereas the other side of the picture is that the parties opposing SIR in Bihar also put their booth level agent i.e. BLA in work. According to Election Commission data, the Congress had set up only 8586 BLA before the SIR process started on 23 June. But at the conclusion of the process on 25 July, 17549 BLA of Congress was appointed. The Congress increased the BLA by 105 per cent for this despite opposing the SIR process.
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BJP’s 53338 BLA became part of the process. Rashtriya Janata Dal’s 47506 BLA was involved in the process. 36550 BLA of Janata Dal United attended. Left parties did not show interest at the beginning of the SIR process, but till the end these parties also increased the number of BLA. A total of 1 lakh 60 thousand 813 BLA of 12 recognized political parties in Bihar became part of the intensive voter revision process. In case of any irregularity, workers of opposition parties can immediately oppose themselves, but so far not a single case has come up where the workers of the opposition parties have complained about it. Only the Leader of the Opposition is trying to create a sensation by talking like this. This is the real face and character of the opposition. He misleads another countrymen to mislead and tarnish the credibility of constitutional institutions, while the other law also takes part in other law processes.
Not only Bihar, political parties have been raising demands from time to time to remove fake and disqualified voters across the country. The case of Bangladeshi intruders in the area of Seemanchal of Bihar has been coming up for years. The equation of the entire Seemanchal has changed in the last 30 years. The population of minorities in Kishanganj, Araria, Katihar and Purnia has increased from 40 per cent to 70 per cent. This is the reason that the demand for the ban of Bangladeshi intruders in this area has been raised over the years. There was also news of migration of Hindus from many areas. When the central government had asked to implement NRC in the entire country, there was also a protest against this area in Bihar.
According to Election Commission data, 99.8 percent of Bihar i.e. 7.23 crore voters have been covered in this revision process. It is being claimed that the names of at least 61 lakh voters in Bihar may be cut in Bihar. In this, 21.6 lakh voters have passed away. 31.5 lakh voters have permanently settled in other places. Are. The names of about seven lakh voters are recorded in the voter list of two places.
Bihar has 243 assembly seats. The difference between a few hundred voters in the assemblies affects the win-defeat. In the 2020 assembly elections, the difference between winning and defeat in about twenty percent seats was only up to two and a half percent. Out of these, 17 seats were won by one percent less vote. If the names of these votes are not cut in intensive revision, then the election results in their name can be changed.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav is threatening the election boycott. However, this is not the first time for the politics of the country that a political party has threatened to boycott election. Earlier, many political parties and extremist organizations threatened to boycott the election several times in Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast states. Even after the Emergency, major opposition parties had talked about boycotting the election. Despite this, elections were held there and all those people also participated in the election and won.
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi is raising the issue of SIR of voter list in Bihar in his style. He is accusing the BJP government of ‘theft of votes’ at the Center. Rahul Gandhi had started accusing the Maharashtra assembly elections, but now he is raising it more vigorously. Rahul Gandhi is accusing voting disturbances in Maharashtra and Karnataka, but the rest of the elections are kept silent.
For the past several days, Rahul Gandhi has been making a strong, indefinite and unrestrained comments on the Election Commission. Are accusing the commission of collusion with the BJP. Actually Rahul Gandhi wants to take the Election Commission and election machinery under pressure. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced from the open platform that she will not allow SIR in Bengal. Many other leaders of the opposition are also opposing SIR. These are the same people who used to roam across the country during the Lok Sabha elections with love shops, protecting the constitution and copies of the Constitution. And accused the BJP of being anti -constitution and changing the constitution. This is his original character.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the opposition raised the issue of ‘threat to changing the constitution’ after the BJP came to power. This gave the Congress good success. Similarly, the opposition wants to gain an edge by raising the issue of losing votes among the people and the issue of disturbances in the election. With this, he wants to pressurize the ruling party as well as strengthen his hold among the public. If one percent of the people of the public arise their ‘fear of losing their votes’, then it can change the entire electoral mathematics. Congress-National Janata Dal is seen working on this ‘strategy’ with complete preparation.
The Election Commission has only gone to another place and said that the names of voters who have been included in the voter list in two places of the same person have been removed from the voter list, in such a situation, the opposition to SIR is completely irrational. The Election Commission is updating the voter list under the Rules Act. This is part of his duty. Clean and clear voter list is necessary for healthy democracy. In fact, the opposition’s uproar on the voter list is just an attempt to attract the attention of the public by doing political stunts. Opposition is looking for excuses from now on seeing his defeat in elections. This is the result of the protests and rhetoric on the Election Commission.
– Dr. Ashish Vashistha
freelance journalist