Patna RJD leader and former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday claimed that his name was missing from the revised draft voters’ list published on Friday in poll-bound Bihar. The Election Commission swiftly refuted the allegation by sharing Yadav’s details from the electoral rolls, calling it a “mischievous claim”.
Yadav displayed his Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number and entered it into the poll body’s official mobile application, which showed a “no records found” error. My name is also not on the voter list. How will I contest the elections?,” the RJD leader asked at the presser.
It has come to our attention that Tejashwi Yadav has made a mischievous claim that his name does not appear in the draft electoral roll. His name is listed at Serial Number 416 in the Draft Electoral Roll. Therefore, any claim stating that his name is not included in the draft electoral roll is false and factually incorrect, the commission said.
The Election Commission said no BLA of any political party, including RJD, submitted a single case to BLOs during last 24 hours. He should ask 47,506 BLAs of his party to file claims and objections if they find that name of any eligible is left out or if name of any ineligible voter has been included. All his BLAs have agreed to go through the booth wise draft lists given to them on August 1 carefully, he said.
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar has triggered a major controversy, with the Opposition strongly criticising it as an “exercise in exclusion” and a “conspiracy” to disenfranchise communities that form its core vote bank. After the central poll body busted Tejashwi’s claims, BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya tweeted wrote on X: “Tejashwi Yadav’s claim that his name is missing from the electoral roll post Special Intensive Revision is false. His name appears at Serial Number 416. Please verify facts before amplifying misinformation. Deliberate attempts to mislead voters must be called out.”
The draft electoral rolls, prepared as part of the special intensive revision (SIR) with just a few months left for assembly polls, are available for voters online. The commission has also said it was making available printed copies, district wise, to representatives of political parties so that anomalies, if any, could be flagged during the ‘claims and objections’ phase, which would continue till September 1 before the ‘final rolls’ are published.
-
-
-
-
