After a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in Patna on Tuesday, the CPI‑ML said it has a number of questions and complaints about the current election process and the new voter list that was issued under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
Santosh Sahani, a central‑committee member of the CPI‑ML, told reporters that the party wants clear answers about how the final SIR list was decided. “We saw that about 65 lakh names were already removed from the draft list and an additional 3.66 lakh names have now been taken off the final list,” Sahani said. “We don’t know the reasons for those deletions. We want the Election Commission to publish a booth‑wise list of all the names that were removed, just like it did for the 65 lakh voters after the Supreme Court’s order.”
Sahani also pointed out that the new list adds roughly 21 lakh voters – some are completely new, while others were re‑added after complaints were filed. He asked for a separate booth‑wise table showing which previously deleted voters were later restored.
The party flagged inconsistent gender data in the SIR. “The latest Berkshire caste survey shows a male‑female ratio of 914, but the SIR records a ratio of 892. This suggests that fewer women are being counted,” Sahani said. He asked the Election Commission to explain the discrepancy.
Another concern was that 6,000 people have their citizenship status flagged as “suspicious.” “If that is true, the names and the reasons for suspicion should be made public,” Sahani added.
The CPI‑ML also urged that Bihar’s assembly elections be held in just two phases instead of multiple phases, saying that multi‑phase voting is expensive and exhausting for smaller parties.
Sahani raised an issue of possible discrimination in officer appointments. “Reports from districts such as Bhojpur show that senior officers from Muslim, Dalit, and other weaker communities are being sidelined in favour of those from dominant groups,” he said. “We demand that these practices be stopped immediately.”
Finally, the party asked for security form 17C for polling agents and requested that polling booths for Dalit, Muslim, and backward communities be located within their own neighbourhoods to ensure free and fair voting.
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