As SC hears Bihar SIR pleas, poll body said exercise going on smoothly

With the Supreme Court asking the Election Commission to consider Aadhaar, voter ID and ration cards as valid documents during its ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, the poll panel on Thursday said that 66.16 per cent enumeration forms have been collected back from voters.

The electors still have 15 more days left to submit the form back to poll officials in the poll-bound state, it added.

"By 6.00 PM Thursday, 5,22,44,956 enumeration forms, which is 66.16 per cent of the total of 7,89,69,844 (nearly 7.90 crore) existing electors in Bihar, have been collected in the last 16 days, since the issue of SIR instructions on June 24," the Election Commission (EC) said in a statement.

Maintaining the same momentum on the field, the exercise of collecting enumeration forms could be completed well before the stipulated date -- July 25, the poll authority underlined.

Calling SIR a "constitutional mandate", Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi considered the submissions of senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the EC, and permitted the poll panel to continue with the exercise in Bihar.

Terming the right to vote as an important right in a democratic country, it said, "We cannot stop a constitutional body from doing what it is supposed to do. Simultaneously, we will not let them do what they are not supposed to do."