By Arun Srivastava
By adding 70 lakh fake voters, the then CEC Rajeev Kumar had helped Narendra Modi’s NDA to grab two-third seats out of 288 in the assembly elections held in Maharashtra in 2024 end and now his successor, current CEC Gyanesh Kumar is working on the plan to install an NDA government in Bihar by declaring 69 lakh electors as ghost voters.. This how the opposition leaders in Bihar are explaining the EC’s hurry in completing the SIR in Bihar.
According to the ECI, its enumerators or the BLOs have detected these ghost voters during their house-to-house visit in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll in Bihar. According to the ECI its poll officials have so far found that more than 52 lakh voters were not present at their addresses and another 18 lakh have died. Around 26 lakh electors have shifted to different constituencies, while another seven lakh have enrolled at two places.
While this revelation puts a question mark on the work culture and efficiency of the ECI, it also sends a strong message that all the elections, whether assembly or Lok Sabha, are illegal as this large number of fake and ghost electors had elected the previous governments. In this backdrop the BJP leaders and members of Lok Sabha should instantly resign as they were elected on the strength of ghost voters. This nevertheless also raises question on the working capabilities of the ECI. How could the existence of 69 lakh fake or ghost voters did not attract their attention.
Incidentally the ECI has not added the “huge number” of foreign nationals enrolled as voters in Bihar in the list of the ghost voters. The Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have found a “huge number” of people from Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar in the electoral rolls of Bihar during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR). ECI clarified that these names would be deleted from the final rolls to be published on September 30 but only after a proper enquiry, which will be conducted after August 1.
Shocking indeed is that BJP’s peoples’ representative to the Lok Sabha and Bihar assembly, elected by the foreign nationals have been ruling the Indian natives. It is a shame for the ECI and Amit Shah’s home ministry, which is supposed to keep a strict watch on the movement of the foreign nationals. The big question is how could they enrol and participate in the elections? This development also gives rise to yet another question; whether BJP state unit and the officials of Amit Shah had connived to get them registered for ensuring the victory of BJP and its allies.
This finding of the ECI absolutely makes it clear that the existing electoral roll is not inclusive. ECI has been trying to enact yet another gimmick by asking the opposition parties to connect with such voters so that they can approach the poll authorities in the state for inclusion of their names in the draft rolls. This is simply a ploy to ensure a legal trustworthiness and obtain a stamp of honesty to its flawed and conspiratorial agenda. By agreeing to ECI proposal the opposition parties would be legalising its nefarious design.
The ECI narrative makes it absolutely clear that around 1 crore voters out of 7.89 crores would be declared as illegible to exercise their hard earned right to elect their representative. Exclusion of this massive number of voters will undoubtedly ensure BJP trounce the INDIA bloc at the 2025 Bihar assembly elections. This will have a major impact across the country and the worst sufferer would be West Bengal, where already the RSS and BJP are busy preparing their ground.
Detaining Bengali migrant labourers in Delhi and Haryana ought to be seen in this backdrop. In Gurgaon over 300 individuals from Bengal, suspected to be illegal migrants, had been detained and sent to four holding centres in the city. This is being done on the plea of weeding out Bangladeshis. This has stoked fears of persecution forcing the Bengali Muslim migrant workers from Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia and South Dinajpur in Bengal, and Assam to return to Bengal and Assam.
All of them have been living in these cities for more than 25 years and have ration, voter, Aadhaar and PAN cards. Top political sources are afraid of intensification of this drive after Bihar assembly vote in 2025. It is intended to scare the Muslim voters of Bengal and force them not to vote for TMC of Mamata Banerjee.
The Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal leadership correctly hold the view that participating in the election, to be held on the revised electoral roll will simply serve the nefarious design of the ECI and BJP. These leaders point out that on the plea of deleting these names, the ECI at the direction of Modi and Amit Shah have been planning to debar the Dalits, OBC and EBC from voting. Eventually with this section unable to vote, the BJP will manage to win on the strength of the false votes and support of the feudal lords and rich upper castes.
Before the launch of SIR, it had transpired that around 70 per cent of the B LOs (Block Level Officers) are RSS cadres and supporters and are entrusted with the task to help BJP win the election. These findings are their brain children. They have prepared the report simply to facilitate the BJP win the election.
The views expressed by RJD leader Tejashvi Yadav, Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly deserves serious attention. It is absolutely clear that Gyanesh Kumar would not retrace his step. It is certain that he will delete around 1 crore votes to ensure defeat of the INDIA bloc. Opposition participating in the election will only provide stamp of sacredness to the BJP win. The opposition must reach out to the rural areas and apprise the voters of the fallacy of the election and ensure that people respond to their call and boycott the election. This will expose the duality of the ECI.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge rightly observed; “It is deeply unfortunate that a constitutional institution like the Election Commission is supporting the BJP-RSS in this conspiracy of ‘vote suppression”. The entire country has seen how, in Bihar, the Election Commission’s BLOs are making their own staff fill out forms to strip the deprived sections of society of their voting rights. Now, the Election Commission will carry out this same task across the entire country.”
Election Commission of India was treating the people of Bihar as bundles of fool is also apparent from its assertion that forms will be sent to migrant labourers and after filling the forms, they can submit it online. But the feedback received from the migrant labourers makes it explicit that they are unaware of online route for enrolment in electoral rolls. Among those who had filled in the forms — by visiting their homes or through their families — about a third had none of the 11 stipulated documents, reveals the survey by the Stranded Workers Action Network. Just imagine the plight of the labourers. They had to rush to their villages leaving aside their daily wage job.
Yet another disturbing feature of this SIR exercise is, mostly the young voters are being denied the right to vote. Being able bodied they have migrated to other states for work and obviously they are not enrolled as voters at their native places. Interestingly 81 per cent of them who have turned 18 after 2003 (when the last SIR was done) have a voter ID. (IPA Service)
