Patna (Bihar) [India], July 1 : Rashtriya Janata Dal leader (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday questioned the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise being carried out by the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of the upcoming Bihar assembly elections and claimed that the poll body has "lost control" over its actions.
He further attacked those "looting Bihar", saying that their time to loot the state was getting over, and thus, they want to cut the poor from the voters' list to remain in power.
"Has the Election Commission held a presser after we started raising questions on the issue of clarity...it seems like Election Commission has lost control...people are scared here that we will leave if we don't do anything...the time for those looting Bihar in collaboration with retired (government) officials is getting over...how will they extension now? Cut short the voters' list, and remove the poor from the voters' list. This is what they are up to," Tejashwi, who is also the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Bihar legislative assembly, said in a press conference here.
He claimed that there was a campaign filled with "confusion, uncertainty, and a repressive attitude" being run in the name of the Special Intensive Revision of the voter list. He criticised the constant changes by the Election Commission to its guidelines after the opposition held a press conference earlier, questioning its decision.
"We are observing that in Bihar, under the name of the Special Intensive Voter List Revision 2025, a campaign is being run that is entirely filled with confusion, uncertainty, and a repressive attitude," Tejashwi said.
"Since our press conference on June 27, the Election Commission has made several changes to the guidelines during this Special Intensive Voter List Revision campaign--sometimes altering the eligibility date, sometimes changing the nature of required documents, and sometimes modifying the process timeline," he added.
The former Bihar Deputy CM further labelled the SIR campaign as "unilateral and secretive electoral clean-up".
What kind of revision is this, where new orders are issued every week and old orders are changed? Is the Commission itself unsure of what it wants to do? Was the plan for this entire campaign shared with any political party? Was there any all-party meeting? Is this not a unilateral and secretive electoral "clean-up"?
Earlier, Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar affirmed that the main objective of the initiative is to avoid any "illegible" voter and ensure that no one is left out of the voter list.
In his statement, the Chief Election Commissioner stated that one lakh volunteers have also been deployed to assist the elderly, sick, persons with disabilities (PwD) and marginalised groups in filling up their Enumeration Forms.
The objective of SIR is to ensure that no eligible voter is left out, and at the same time, no ineligible voter is included in the Electoral Roll. More than one lakh volunteers have also been deployed to assist the elderly, sick, persons with disabilities (PwD) and marginalised groups in filling up their Enumeration Forms", Gyanesh Kumar said in his statement.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has postponed a scheduled meeting with a multi-party delegation on Wednesday regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar due to 'lack of confirmation' from the participating political parties, sources in the poll panel said.
The meeting was originally scheduled on July 2 at 5 PM, they said.
Claiming to represent multiple political parties in the matter, the meeting was initially requested by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) via an email on June 30, EC sources said on Tuesday.
Following standard procedure, the Commission contacted the relevant political parties to confirm their participation in the proposed meeting. However, as of July 1, no confirmation had been received from any of the parties, the ECI sources said.
The Bihar assembly elections are scheduled to take place at the end of this year.