Bihar SIR: 86.32% of enumeration forms collected so far; draft rolls to be published on August 1

Hyderabad: The third round of household visits by the nearly 1 lakh BLOs will soon begin to collect the filled Enumeration Forms (EFs) of the remaining electors in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar.

Data on Special Intensive Revision so far

Out of the 7,89,69,844 electors in Bihar, EFs of 6,81,67,861 or 86.32 per cent have been collected. Accounting for the deceased, permanently shifted and people enrolled in more than one place, the EF collection phase of the SIR has covered 90.84 per cent of the nearly 7.9 crore strong electorate in Bihar. Only 9.16 per cent of electors remain to submit their filled EFs before the July 25 deadline.

Ten more days are left for the last date of submission of the filled Enumeration Forms (EFs) in the ongoing Bihar SIR.

The BLOs shall again visit those households where the electors were temporarily absent in the previous visits.

Draft ER set to be published on August 1

In a public statement, the Election Commission said that special camps have been established in all the 5,683 wards of all 261 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) of Bihar. It said newspaper advertisements have been issued to ensure that the remaining electors fill their EFs well in time and have their names also included in the Draft ER to be published on August 1.

Such electors are also being encouraged by the BLOs to fill up their forms online using their mobile phones through the ECINet app or through the online form on https://voters.eci.gov.in.

How to use the ECINet App to upload data?

Through ECINet, the electors can also fill out their EFs online and search for their names in the 2003 ER wherever applicable.

The electors can also connect with their election officials, including their BLOs, using the ECINet App. Uploading of forms on ECINet has further picked up with over 6.20 crore Enumeration Forms uploaded on the platform as of 6 pm on Wednesday.

The ECI said, a new module to check the status of submission of their EFs will be live on Wednesday night on https://voters.eci.gov.in

Organisation of BLOs

The BLOs are being supported in their efforts by the 1.5 lakh BLAs appointed by all political parties, each one of whom can certify and submit up to 50 EFs per day. To ensure that no eligible urban voter is left out of the ER, special camps are also being set up in all the 5,683 wards of all 261 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) of Bihar.

What is the controversy regarding Special Intensive Revision in Bihar?

SIR is a door-to-door verification drive across Bihar to update electoral rolls, the first such extensive exercise since 2003. As many as Rs 3 crore people have been asked to provide additional documents as proof of their identity.

When the revision of electoral rolls was announced, the opposition parties alleged that the revision would lead to manipulation of voter numbers that would benefit the ruling NDA government. According to the latest news reports, over 35 lakh names are set to be excluded from Bihar’s electoral roll as a result of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

The Supreme Court is set to hear petitions on July 10 challenging the exercise by the ECI.

Opposition parties, RJD and Congress, led by Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi, led the Bharat Bandh to oppose SIR.