EC GIVES RELIEF TO VOTERS OF BIHAR

EC GIVES RELIEF TO VOTERS OF BIHAR

2-JULY-ENG 1

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

PATNA-------------------------The Election Commission of India (ECI) has given a big relief to the voters of Bihar. The Commission has uploaded the voter list of Bihar for the year 2003 on its website https://voters.eci.gov.in. This list contains detailed details of 4.96 crore voters of the state.

This move will give a lot of impetus to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) campaign in Bihar, as now about 60 percent of the voters will not need to submit any additional document for their voter ID. They will only have to verify their details in the 2003 voter list and fill and submit the calculation form. This facility is available online for both voters and Booth Level Officers (BLOs).

According to the instructions of the Commission, if the name of a person is not in the voter list of 2003, but the name of his mother or father is in that list, then in such cases also there will be no need to submit any other document. The relevant part of the voter list of 2003 will be sufficient. Such voters will only have to submit the enumeration form along with their documents.

The Election Commission has clarified that revision of the voter list before every election is mandatory under Section 21(2)(a) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and Rule 25 of the Electoral Registration Rules, 1960. The Commission has been doing this annual revision regularly for the last 75 years. The voter list is a dynamic document, which keeps changing continuously due to death, transfer (due to employment, education, marriage etc.) and new voters who have completed the age of 18 years.

According to Article 326 of the Constitution, only those Indian citizens are eligible to become voters who are above 18 years of age and who ordinarily reside in the concerned constituency.

This new facility will make it much easier for lakhs of voters of Bihar to include or verify their names in the voter list.