Parties Flag Aadhaar Hurdles: SC to Examine Pleas on Bihar Voter Roll Deadline

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear pleas filed by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, seeking an extension of the September 1 deadline for filing claims and objections in the exclusion of voters from the draft electoral roll published during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision exercise in Bihar.

The court should order the Election Commission of India (ECI) to extend the deadline for submitting claims and objections to September 15, the parties have asked.

According to The Hindu, the parties submitted that there has been a substantially increased flow of claims after the court, in an order on August 22, allowed excluded voters to file their applications along with their Aadhaar card.

“Since the last order of the Supreme Court on August 22 permitting the filing of claims along with Aadhaar card, the number of claims has doubled from 84,305 on August 22 to 1,78,948 electors on August 27 in only five days. However, across districts, there are many instances where officers have refused to accept the claims only with the Aadhaar card. They have, in utter disregard to the Supreme Court order [of August 22], insisted upon one of the 11 documents mentioned in the ECI order of June 26,” RJD submitted.

The August 22 order made it plain that anyone who feels wronged must submit their Aadhar card or any of the 11 suggestive papers with their petitions for inclusion.

BLOs are demanding that Form 6 be submitted to be re-included in the Bihar electoral roll, according to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, or CPI(M-L).  New voters and voters moving from one constituency to another are covered by Form 6 of the Registration of Electors Rules 1960. Aadhaar cards and claims gathered by RJD's Booth Level Agents (BLAs) and sent to Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are acknowledged, according to the company, but they are not filed or included in the ECI's daily progress report.

“This is to start a wrong narrative that the BLAs of political parties are not cooperating and filing claims… The ECI has completed the exercise without considering the Aadhaar card as a standalone document and has prepared the draft roll without considering the Aadhaar card,” RJD said.

Bihar’s main Opposition party said it had tried to counter the ECI’s “narrative” by tweeting the BLOs’ acknowledgements on August 25.

The post tagged the ECI as well. But the ECI failed to update its daily status report. Three claims against RJD are included in the August 28 status report, even though BLAs have submitted a far greater number of claims, the application stated.

Furthermore, according to RJD, many of the 7.2 crore electors who had turned in their enumeration forms had not yet turned in any of the 11 listed papers.

“Direct the ECI to accept the Aadhaar cards of electors who have submitted their enumeration forms and not delete any entry from the draft roll on the ground of insufficiency of documents in case an elector has an Aadhaar card,” the parties urged.

Both parties claim the flood in Bihar is making the task of verification difficult.“Villages in 12 districts across 54 blocks and 348 panchayats have been impacted by floods… In these extraordinary circumstances, it is unreasonable to expect ordinary citizens to prioritise voter registration over immediate survival and rehabilitation concerns,” RJD and CPI(M-L) said in their separate applications for extension of the deadline to September 15.