SC reviews documents, calls exercise ‘voter-friendly’

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the 11 documents required to be submitted by an elector for Biharrsquos Special Intensive Revision SIR of electoral rolls as opposed to seven documents in summary revision conducted previously showed the exercise was ldquovoter friendlyrdquoA bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi which resumed hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the June 24 decision of Election Commission EC to conduct SIR in poll bound Bihar said despite petitionersrsquo arguments that nonacceptance of Aadhaar was exclusionary it appeared the large number of documents was ldquoactually inclusionaryrdquoldquoThe number of documents in summary revision conducted earlier in the state was seven and in SIR it is 11 which shows it is voter friendly We understand your arguments that nonacceptance of Aadhaar is exclusionary but a high number of documents is actually inclusionaryrdquo the bench said The top court noted electors were required to submit any one of the 11 documents in the listSenior advocate Abhishek Singhvi appearing for the petitioners disagreed and submitted that the number of documents may be high but they had the least coverageGiving an example of passport availability with the electors Singhvi said it was only one to two per cent in Bihar and they have no provision for permanent resident certificates given in the state ldquoIf we see the availability of documents with the population in Bihar it can be seen the coverage is very lowrdquo he said The bench said the coverage of 36 lakh of passport holders in the state appears to be goodCong releases lsquovote chorirsquo adThe Congress on Wednesday stepped up its campaign against alleged lsquovote chorirsquo by releasing a new video depicting how fake votes were being cast and party chief Mallikarjun Kharge asking people to raise their voice and save constitutional institutions from the ldquoclutches of the BJPrdquoCongress leader Rahul Gandhi also shared the minutelong video and said ldquoAapke vote ki chori aapke adhikar ki chori aapki pehchaan ki chori hairdquoTagging the advertisement titled lsquobooth par vote chorirsquo Kharge said ldquoDo not let your rights to vote be snatched away Ask questions demand answers this time Raise your voice against vote chorirdquo ldquoFree constitutional institutions from the clutches of the BJPrdquo he said in his message to the people Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also shared the video on X and said ldquothe theft of your vote is theft of your rights theft of your identityrdquoldquoSave your right to vote Raise your voice against vote theftrdquo The video made by the Congress depicts a family entering a polling booth with two people telling them that their votes have already been cast by them and it ends with the two persons casting fake votes showing a thumbs up to an officer sitting at the table with lsquoelection chori aayogrsquo display plate on his tableThe Congress on Tuesday had claimed that ldquovote chorirdquowas a ldquodoordierdquo issue for it and announced a roadmap to take its allegations to the people through various activities including taking out lsquoLoktantra bachao mashaal marchesrsquo on August 14 eveninglsquoVote chor gaddi chhodrsquoThe Rajasthan unit of Congress took out a march against the alleged discrepancies in voter list raised by party leader Rahul Gandhi Led by state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra the protesters marched from the party headquarters here to the Shaheed Smarak raising slogans like ldquovote chor gaddi chhodrdquo vote thieves vacate the throne on the way Addressing the party workers Dotasra accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of securing power through ldquostolen votesrdquoEC colluding with BJP TejashwiRJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday accused the Election Commission EC of ldquocolludingrdquo with the BJP to ldquostealrdquo votes in Bihar where Assembly polls are due later this year He also alleged that the poll panel was ldquohelping BJP leaders secure two voter cards eachrdquo and reiterated that the RJD could boycott the Bihar elections if alleged irregularities on the electoral rolls are not rectified The BJP termed these allegations as ldquofalse and misleadingrdquo ldquoIt is a fact that the EC has colluded with the BJP to steal votes in Bihar In fact the draft electoral rolls published by the EC after the initial exercise of the SIR should be called lsquodacoityrsquo of votes The EC is helping BJP leaders secure two voter ID cards each in the state Yadav allegedlsquoChor machaye shorrsquoThe BJP on Wednesday claimed irregularities in voter registration in Rae Bareli Wayanad Diamond Harbour and Kannauj parliamentary seats and asked Rahul Gandhi Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Abhishek Banerjee and Akhilesh Yadav to resign as Lok Sabha MPs alleging they secured victory in elections with ldquovote chorirdquoFromer Union minister Anurag Thakur flagged ldquoirregularitiesrdquo in the voter registration in Kolathur Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu and in Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh and asked CM and DMK supremo MK Stalin and SP leader Dimple Yadav to resign for ldquoriggingrdquo election ldquoSeeing this lsquoshorrsquo hue and cry being made by the opposition it now seems that lsquochor machaye shorrsquordquo he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever