‘No ruling side or opposition for us’: EC in first presser since Bihar SIR; backs exercise | India News

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Sunday, in its first presser since the controversial particular intensive revision (SIR) in Bihar, dismissed the opposition’s claims of biased strategy in direction of any political social gathering and mentioned that there was “no ruling side or opposition for us”. “As per the Constitution of India, every citizen of India who has attained the age of 18 years must become a voter and must also vote. You all know that, as per the law, every political party is born through registration with the Election Commission,” Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar mentioned.Then how can the Election Commission discriminate among the many identical political events? For the Election Commission, all are equal. No matter who belongs to any political social gathering, the Election Commission won’t step again from its constitutional obligation,” he added.He further raised concerns over some parties and leaders “spreading misinformation on SIR in Bihar.”Dismissing “vote chori” claims made by the opposition leaders, and extra not too long ago by Rahul Gandhi, Kumar questioned saying, “multiple crore staff engaged in election exercise, can ‘vote chori’ occur in such clear course of.”“In the method of Lok Sabha elections, multiple crore staff, greater than 10 lakh sales space stage brokers, greater than 20 lakh polling brokers of candidates work for the elections. In such a clear course of in entrance of so many individuals, can any voter steal votes?” he mentioned.On conducting SIR in West Bengal, CEC said that the three election commissioners will decide when the exercise would be carried out in Bengal or other states.Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi slammed the EC’s Special Intensive Revision in Bihar as a “conspiracy to steal” the upcoming polls.“I’m telling you from this stage that Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections are being stolen in your complete nation. Their newest conspiracy is to conduct SIR in Bihar and steal the Bihar elections as properly. All of us have come to this stage to let you know that we’ll not allow them to steal this election,” Rahul Gandhi said at Congress’s ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ event.The poll body and state CEOs have repeatedly refuted Rahul Gandhi’s Aug 7 “vote chori” allegations and similar opposition claims through fact-checks on social media.EC on Saturday reiterated that electors and political parties have a month-long period to submit claims and objections prior to the publication of the final roll. Beyond this, they can still pursue a two-stage appeal—initially with the district magistrate (DM) and thereafter with the chief electoral officer (CEO).“It seems some political parties and their booth level agents did not examine the electoral rolls at the appropriate time (during claims and objections and then, the appeal period) and did not point out errors, if any, to SDMs/EROs, DEOs or CEOs,” EC said, adding if done at the “right time through the right channels, it would have enabled the SDM/ERO to correct the mistakes, if genuine, before those elections,” it said.It said that the parliamentary and assembly election system is a multi-layered, decentralized setup. Sub-Divisional Magistrates act as Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), assisted by Booth Level Officers (BLOs), to prepare and finalize electoral rolls and ensure their accuracy. Once the draft roll is published, both digital and physical copies are shared with political parties and uploaded on the ECI website.