Election Commission told Supreme Court Bihar SIR was accurate, dismissing communal exclusion claims by ADR and Yogendra Yadav.

The Election Commission on Thursday told the Supreme Court that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar ahead of Legislative Assembly polls was “accurate" and the allegations that Muslims were disproportionately excluded from the final list were “communal".

In an affidavit filed before a bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, the poll body said that political parties and NGOs are merely content with making “false allegations" to discredit the exercise. It further said that not a single appeal has been filed by any voter against name deletion since the publication of the final electoral roll.

The ECI pointed out that an NGO named Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and activist Yogendra Yadav have allegeDd that there is disproportionate exclusion of Muslims (25 per cent amongst 65 lakh excluded voters from the draft electoral roll, and 34 per cent amongst 3.66 lakh electors finally deleted) which was based on some software for name recognition, whose authenticity, accuracy or appropriateness cannot be commented upon.

Terming these claims as baseless and communal, the poll body said that such an approach “is to be deprecated."

“This communal approach is to be deprecated. The electoral rolls database does not capture any information on religion of any elector…," it said as quoted by news agency PTI, adding these 65 lakh deleted individuals were not included as they did not submit enumeration forms being dead, having permanently shifted or having entries in more than one constituency.

According to the ECI’s data, political parties filed only 25 claims for inclusion and 119 objections, while 36,475 inclusion and 2.17 lakh exclusion claims were received directly from individuals.

It emphasised that no appeals so far have been received against exclusions from the final list.

Seeking dismissal of pleas challenging the June 24 decision of the poll panel to conduct the Bihar SIR, the EC said the petitioners have “ulterior motives" and are merely content with making “false allegations" to discredit the SIR exercise, final electoral roll and the ECI for electoral interest of political parties.

It further said that barring appointment of Booth Level Agents (BLAs), the political parties and public-spirited individuals and organisations made no substantial contribution in ensuring that all the eligible electors were included in the final electoral roll.

“The approach of the political parties and the petitioners has been to accuse the ECI and attempt to point out errors in the SIR exercise. In contrast, the ECI not only appointed more than 90,000 BLOs, but also involved political parties and got BLAs appointed. The exercise was conducted on an H2H basis involving more than one visit. All relevant data was uploaded on the websites," it said.

On October 7, the top court asked the EC to provide details of 3.66 lakh voters who were part of the draft voter list but were excluded from the final electoral roll prepared after Bihar’s SIR exercise, saying there is “confusion" over the matter.

On September 30, the EC, while publishing the final electoral list of the poll-bound Bihar, said the total number of electors has come down by nearly 47 lakh to 7.42 crore in the final electoral roll from 7.89 crore before SIR.

The final figure has, however, increased by 17.87 lakh from 7.24 crore electors named in the draft list issued on August 1, which had removed 65 lakh voters from the original list on various accounts, including deaths, migration and duplication of voters.

While 21.53 lakh new electors have been added to the draft list, 3.66 lakh names have been removed, resulting in a net increase of 17.87 lakh.

The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned the petitions concerning the Bihar SIR exercise to November 4, after being informed by the Election Commission that it is in the process of publishing the final electoral roll.

“We have no doubt that they will fulfil their responsibility… They are bound to publish… We are not closing the matter," it said.

The election for the 243 Assembly seats in Bihar will be held in two phases —November 6 and November 11, with counting scheduled for November 14.