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

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India on Sunday, in its first presser since the controversial special intensive revision (SIR) in Bihar, dismissed the opposition’s claims of biased approach towards any political party and said 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 said.Then how can the Election Commission discriminate among the same political parties? For the Election Commission, all are equal. No matter who belongs to any political party, the Election Commission will not step back from its constitutional duty,” 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 more recently by Rahul Gandhi, Kumar said, “In the process of Lok Sabha elections, more than one crore employees, more than 10 lakh booth level agents, more than 20 lakh polling agents of candidates work for the elections. In such a transparent process in front of so many people, can any voter steal votes?”Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi slammed the EC’s Special Intensive Revision in Bihar as a “conspiracy to steal” the upcoming polls.“I am telling you from this stage that Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections are being stolen in the entire country. Their latest conspiracy is to conduct SIR in Bihar and steal the Bihar elections as well. All of us have come to this stage to tell you that we will not let them 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.