NEW DELHI: The Congress party Sunday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of deliberately removing Dalit and Muslim women voters from electoral rolls in Bihar, particularly in six districts that saw close contests in the 2020 assembly polls.
According to All India Mahila Congress president Alka Lamba, 22.7 lakh women’s names were deleted from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Lamba alleged that the removal of voters’ names was a well-planned conspiracy to tilt the balance in favour of the NDA. “In the 2020 Bihar Vidhan Sabha elections, it was a close contest between the Mahagathbandhan and the NDA in these seats. The voters’ names were deleted under a well-planned conspiracy to tilt the balance in NDA’s favor,” she said.
The six districts that saw significant deletions are Gopalganj, Saran, Begusarai, Samastipur, Bhojpur, and Purnia, which collectively hold 59 Assembly seats. Lamba claimed that about 23 lakh women and 15 lakh male voters’ names had been deleted during the SIR exercise, aimed at denying the right to vote to those who might vote against the BJP.
Lamba questioned the logic of removing voters’ names at this stage, asking, “By this argument, shouldn’t the 2024 parliamentary elections in these areas be cancelled and conducted once again?” She reaffirmed the party’s commitment against vote theft in Bihar and announced that the Congress would submit 5 crore signatures to the ECI against vote theft on October 15.
The Congress leader also condemned the refusal by a hospital in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, to treat a pregnant Muslim woman due to her religion, asserting that such incidents cannot be accepted and must