India News | As SC Hears Bihar SIR Pleas, Poll Body Said Exercise Going on Smoothly
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. 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.
New Delhi, Jul 10 (PTI) 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.
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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."
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)