Bihar SIR: Despite SCs rebuke, 65,055 RJD-Congress BLAs filed zero objections on voter rolls
The Supreme Court criticized opposition parties in Bihar for their inaction regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters' list. Despite appointing numerous Booth Level Agents (BLAs), opposition parties like the RJD and Congress filed minimal objections, while individual citizens filed thousands.
New Delhi: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Bihar voters' list by the Election Commission of India (ECI) has created a political storm all over the country. The main opposition party, Congress and its INDIA Bloc, the RJD in Bihar, have been vocal protestors of the SIR, and have even filed a move in the Supreme Court questioning the process.
What did the SC say about the opposition parties?
However, during the hearing of the petitions against the SIR process, the Supreme Court slammed the opposition parties for not assisting the ECI officers. Notably, Justice Kant expressed his bafflement at why the parties did not do anything.
On August 22, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said it was 'surprised' that despite appointing over 1.6 lakh BLAs, parties had filed only two objections since the draft rolls were published. "We are surprised at the inaction of political parties. What have they done after appointing BLAs? Why is there a distance between workers of political parties and voters? They know these people well,” the bench remarked.
He further said, "If political parties had realised their responsibility, this could have been avoided", referring to the wide gap between the common people and the ECI workers deployed for the SIR process. The SC expressed dismay at the 'inaction' of political parties in Bihar over the exclusion of nearly 6.5 million voters from draft electoral rolls, ordering the 12 recognised parties in the state to instruct their booth-level agents (BLAs) and party workers to actively assist excluded voters in filing claims and objections.
The failure of the main opposition parties
The Supreme Court's strong remarks against political parties' inertia are starkly highlighted by official data, which reveals a stunning failure to act by the main opposition parties in Bihar.
The public is extremely active in this matter, in the sense that individual citizens, aware of their excluded status, have filed a massive 140,931 claims and objections. This shows a grassroots-level desperate attempt to secure voting rights, overwhelming the electoral machinery.
On the opposite spectrum is the inactivity of the opposition parties. While parties like the RJD and Congress publicly accuse the ECI of mass voter deletion, their on-ground action is nonexistent. Despite appointing a combined 65,055 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) (RJD: 47,506 + Congress: 17,549), these two parties have filed zero objections in the 25 days since the draft roll was published.
The only objections from any party, a mere 10, came from a smaller party, the CPIML. This proves that the mechanism for filing objections was functional, yet deliberately unused by the largest opposition players.