EC plans house-to-house voter verification before Bihar assembly polls: Report
Several parties, including Congress, accuse the EC of favouring BJP by manipulating voter rolls, as allegations of data tampering continue to surface.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is likely to conduct an intensive house-to-house verification during the upcoming revision of electoral rolls for the Bihar assembly elections scheduled later this year, PTI reported, citing sources.
Allegations of voter list manipulation continue to shadow the Election Commission, with several political parties, including the Congress, accusing it of favouring the BJP by tampering with electoral roll data, the report added.
Concerns over the inclusion and deletion of names have also been consistently raised by civil society groups and other stakeholders.
Quoting officials, the report said they lamented that despite following a detailed protocol, the Election Commission often faces allegations of arbitrarily inflating the electoral roll, even though the process is carried out with full transparency and constant oversight by political parties.
To strengthen the system and eliminate potential errors, the Election Commission is considering an intensive house-to-house verification as part of the upcoming electoral roll revision ahead of the Bihar assembly polls, sources told PTI.
Officials pointed out that similar large-scale verification exercises have been conducted in the past, with the last such drive taking place in 2004.
