Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls, initiated by the Election Commission of India in Bihar a month ago, concluded its first phase on Friday. The exercise has a country-wide range, but the election bound state is the start. Out of nearly 7.90 crore electors on the existing electoral roll, enumeration forms of 7.23 crore have been received; these names are likely to be included in the draft electoral roll, scheduled to be published on 1 August. This has been a gigantic task for field functionaries, especially for Booth Level Officers deployed across 77,895 polling booths.

They had statutory and administrative support from 243 Electoral Registration Officers, about 3,000 Assistant EROs and 38 District Election Officers, typically all the District Magistrates, besides one lakh volunteers. This machinery deserves applause, having delivered against a tight timeline that caused anxiety to many, and despite the noise and protests around them. According to the EC, the process has identified 22 lakh dead electors, seven lakh cases of multiple registrations and 35 lakh permanently migrated or not traceable. The Commission takes satisfaction from the fact that 99.8 per cent of Bihar electors have been covered in the SIR outreach.

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Enumeration forms of only about 1.2 lakh electors remain to be received. In a way, the discovery of over 60 lakh invisible voters provides the first justification for the SIR. This removal is also the main concern of those........

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