NEW DELHI: Continued accusations from NGO-petitioners that the Election Commission deleted names from the Bihar voter list after the special intensive revision made EC retort in the Supreme Court that all political parties have expressed satisfaction with the exercise and that not a single appeal has been filed against the deletion of names. The bench said, “There are people living unauthorisedly in the state. They do not want to expose themselves by filing appeals against deletion of their names. Let hundred people file affidavits and tell the court that they want to file an appeal against deletion of their names.”
The final Bihar voter list contained 7.4 crore names. SIR saw the deletion of 65 lakh voters in the draft voters list. Subsequently, another 3.7 lakh names were deleted, and 21.5 lakh voters, mostly new ones, were added. The Supreme Court asked EC to provide it with the details of 3.7 lakh excluded voters. With EC counsel Rakesh Dwivedi insisting that the NGO represented by Prashant Bhushan should file affidavits by individuals alleging that their names were deleted without intimation, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi wondered, “For whom was this exercise undertaken (by the NGO)?”