Part of the current Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in Bihar, over 5.22 crore enumeration forms equivalent to 66.16% of the state's 7.89 crore registered electors—have been collected in the last 16 days, an official of the Election Commission of India (ECI) revealed on Thursday.
With this rate of progress, officials are hopeful of filling up the forms well in advance of the July 25 deadline. The news was revealed on a day when the Supreme Court refused to stop the process of revising in the poll-bound state.
The ECI reported that 7.90 crore forms of enumeration were printed prior to the commencement of the campaign on June 24, and almost all—around 98%, i.e., 7.71 crore—have already been dispatched to voters whose names had appeared in the electoral roll up to that date.
In a press release, the poll panel asserted that electors still have 15 days remaining to fill in their forms.
This campaign at scale is being carried out on the ground by 77,895 Booth Level Officers (BLOs), and aided by more than four lakh volunteers in helping the elderly, sick, disabled, and other weaker sections of citizens enroll for the revision process.
Further, 1.56 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs), who were all nominated by recognised political parties, are also contributing heavily towards the exercise, which has seen more than two-thirds of the targeted enumeration forms collected so far.
"5,22,44,956 enumeration forms, that is, 66.16 per cent of the total of 7,89,69,844 (almost 7.90 crore) existing electors in Bihar, have been received during the past 16 days up to 6 p.m. today," the ECI said in the statement.
While hearing petitions questioning the SIR directive of June 26, the Supreme Court asked the poll body to consider accepting commonly used documents such as Aadhaar, Voter ID, and Ration Cards for voter authentication "in the interest of justice.
A Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi was considering multiple pleas cautioning that the current revision campaign may disenfranchise significant parts of the electorate without due procedure, thus subverting democratic principles and the holding of free and fair elections.
The top court, observing that draft revised rolls are likely to be published in August, has fixed the case for further hearing before a regular Bench on July 28.
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