Hearing petitions against the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision drive in Bihar, the Supreme Court last week expressed surprise that “the 1,60,813 Booth Level Agents (of various political parties, registered with it) have so far filed only two objections”. It also noted that some parties had submitted that their Booth Level Agents (BLAs) were “not being permitted to submit objections”.
In fact, despite all the talk around the Rahul Gandhi-Tejashwi Yadav-led Vote Adhikar Yatra against the SIR, a total of 10 “objections” plus “claims” have been filed by party BLAs officially with the EC since the draft electoral rolls were published on August 1.
All have been filed by the Mahagathbandhan’s smaller ally, the CPI (M-L) Liberation. Neither the RJD nor the Congress BLAs have filed any objections or claims with the EC.
There are just five days left for this phase of filing of “claims and objections”, which gets over on September 1. After this, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) will go through these and decide on the cases by September 25.
The CPI (M-L) Liberation has far fewer BLAs compared to its bigger counterparts – 1,496, in comparison to 47,506 of the RJD and 53,338 of the BJP, for example. However, as a Left organisation, it has a strong cadre base.
But even the CPI (M-L) Liberation has information to share regarding only two cases in which it has approached the EC – those of Mintu Paswan and Munna Puswan, who have been shown dead and removed from the draft rolls. Earlier this month, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had tea with seven similar people who, the party said, had been declared “dead” as per the EC rolls.
“Our BLA Vishwakarma Paswan (of Booth No. 100, Ara Assembly seat) lodged objections regarding Mintu and Munna. Other complaints were received from Darbhanga, Arwal, Karakat,” said Abhyuday, a Central Committee member of the CPI (M-L) Liberation.
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Mintu and Munna have filled up Form 6 to get enrolled as voters again, after the CPI (M-L) Liberation intervened on their behalf. Voters have to fill up Form 7 in order to file objections.
Abhyuday claimed that his party had discovered another wrongful deletion, of K D Singh, a Bhojpuri poet and retired Postal Department employee. “While his name has been deleted from draft electoral rolls, he is not even in the list of 65 lakh deleted voters. Singh, 84, voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” Abhyuday claims, adding that Singh had approached the EC on his own with his complaint.
According to Abhyuday, the main reason for such few complaints by BLAs was that the EC is “discouraging” complaints from party agents and prefers to take complaints directly from aggrieved voters, such as Singh’s.
“The EC has been trying to give the Supreme Court the impression that BLAs are not active on the ground. But the truth is that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are not keen on accepting complaints from BLAs, and have suggested that the aggrieved voters could approach the EC directly, and that the BLAs not insist on representing them,” Abhyuday said, adding that this could be a tactic by the BLOs to ensure that the numbers of deleted voters don’t reflect poorly on their functioning.
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In a press statement on Monday, EC Assistant Director Apurva Kumar Singh said they had received 1,40,931 complaints (of both claims and objections) directly from voters, of which 14,374 cases had been disposed of.
An EC official rebutted the allegation that BLOs were not entertaining complaints by political parties, and attacked the BLAs instead. “The BLAs have to follow our format to lodge a complaint. We cannot accept complaints in any other format,” the official argued.
RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari, however, admitted that there could be some laxity on the part of their BLAs. “There is a need for greater urgency by them. They need to be conversant with the EC format of lodging complaints.”
Asked about their BLAs, Congress spokesperson Asit Nath Tiwari said: “They have been helping voters individually, even though they are unable to lodge complaints on behalf of the party.”
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Abhyuday said party leaders are also concerned about what comes after September 1. The claims and objections forms are being accepted for now with even an Aadhaar card, as instructed by the Supreme Court, though it is not part of the 11 documents specified by the EC for enrolment.
“Will these forms submitted with only Aadhaar card copies be rejected by EROs, the final authority to issue voter I-cards?” he said.