New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) Welcoming the Supreme Court directive on the Bihar SIR issue, the Congress on Friday said democracy has survived a “brutal assault” from the Election Commission of India (ECI), claiming the poll body stands “totally exposed and discredited”.
The opposition party also said that it hopes this “stern order” by the Supreme Court finally breaks the ECI’s “arrogance and it stops its nefarious attempts to steal votes and evade accountability”.
The Congress’ assertion came after the top court directed the ECI to allow excluded voters to submit their claims through the online mode besides making physical submissions in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi allowed claim forms to be submitted along with Aadhaar card number and any one of the 11 acceptable documents in the SIR.
Expressing surprise over political parties not coming forward in filing objections related to the 65 lakh excluded voters, the top court directed the chief electoral officer of Bihar to implead them in court proceedings.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications, Jairam Ramesh, said the party welcomes the Supreme Court directive.
“Democracy has survived a brutal assault from the Election Commission of India,” he claimed.
On August 14, the Supreme Court intervened to set aside the ECI’s decision to withhold the list of deleted voters, Ramesh said on X.
The Supreme Court directed that the list of deleted voters must be published along with the reasons for such deletions, he pointed out.
Also on August 14, the Supreme Court directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar card as proof of identity for those whose names were deleted, Ramesh said, adding that today it reaffirmed Aadhaar as a valid ID that the ECI must accept.
“Today, the Supreme Court has laid down guardrails to make the revision more inclusive by including political parties in the process. So far the ECI’s approach has been obstructionist and contrary to the interests of the voters. We welcome this judgment, especially because it gives us an enforceable right which the ECI cannot ignore,” the Congress leader said.
“Today, the ECI stands totally exposed and discredited. Its G2 puppeteers stand decisively defeated,” Ramesh said.
Congress general secretary in-charge organisation, K C Venugopal, also said his party welcomes the Supreme Court’s latest decision mandating that the ECI must accept Aadhaar as a valid proof of identity for voters left out of the SIR exercise.
“Further, its insistence that the ECI include political parties is a strong reprimand to the ECI that adopted an obstructionist and combative approach to the entire crisis so far,” he said on X.
“The ECI has been stonewalling attempts from our BLAs who have been complaining. In fact, half of our BLAs were not even acknowledged by the administration,” Venugopal alleged.
“We hope this stern order by the Supreme Court finally breaks the ECI’s arrogance and it stops its nefarious attempts to steal the vote and evade accountability,” the Congress leader said.
The Supreme Court bench said on Friday, “All the political parties shall file the status report by the next date of hearing on the claim form they had facilitated in filing by the excluded voters.” The bench directed the election officials to furnish an acknowledgement receipt to the booth-level agents of the political parties, who submit the claim forms of excluded voters physically.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the poll panel, urged the court to give the ECI a 15-day window to show that there was no exclusion. PTI ASK ARI
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