New Delhi, Oct 4: Political parties in poll-bound Bihar told the Election Commission on Saturday to hold assembly elections soon after the Chhat festival to ensure increased voter participation.
Chhat, an important festival in Bihar that is celebrated six days after Diwali, will fall on October 25-28 this year.
In an interaction with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners S S Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, representatives of six national and as many state parties also pressed for holding elections in a minimal number of phases, officials said.
The poll authority is in Patna for two days to take stock of poll preparedness in the state.
The term of the 243-member Bihar assembly ends on November 22.
The first phase of elections is likely to be held at the end of October, soon after Chhat.
During Diwali and Chhat, people employed outside Bihar return home for festivities, and it is believed that it is the best time to hold polls to ensure greater voter participation.
In 2020, the last assembly polls in the state were held in three phases under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BJP urges EC to verify identity of burqa-clad voters during Bihar polls
The BJP on Saturday urged the Election Commission to hold the upcoming Bihar assembly elections in one or two phases, and to ensure that women in burqas are properly verified against their voter ID photographs at the polling booths.
The BJP found itself on the same page as the RJD, its principal rival, on the issue of non-staggered elections, but got charged with “political conspiracy” for raising the issue of female voters wearing veils.
After a meeting with the visiting EC team, led by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, state BJP president Dilip Jaiswal said, “We have urged the Election Commission to conduct the elections in one or two phases. The election process need not be staggered. Also, tallying of faces of voters, especially burqa-clad women, must be ensured with respective EPIC cards so that only genuine voters get to exercise their franchise.”
The RJD delegation was headed by Abhay Kushwaha, the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha, who was accompanied by spokespersons Chitaranjan Gagan and Mukund Singh.
When Kushwaha’s attention was drawn to Jaiswal’s contention on burqas, he snapped, “This is a political conspiracy. Only recently has the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls been carried out. New EPIC cards are to be issued to all voters with fresh photographs. Identification of voters is no big deal. But the BJP wants to push its own agenda”.
The RJD leader, however, disclosed that, like the BJP, “we urged the EC to consider holding the polls in not more than two phases, since not much time is left (for expiry of the term of the current assembly)”.
It was also the RJD’s contention that the polls be held after Chhath, the state’s most popular festival, held six days after Diwali, which falls at the end of October this year.
Jaiswal, too, had said that the BJP delegation urged the EC to ensure “no further delay in polling dates than the mandatory 28-day gap between the date of announcement of elections and the day on which voting begins. So, if elections are announced in a few days from now, polling should begin November 3-4 onwards”.
Smaller parties like Union Minister Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and INDIA bloc partner CPI(ML) Liberation also told the Election Commission that they were in favour of assembly polls being held in “not more than two phases”.
Both the BJP and the RJD acknowledged that there were a large number of villages in Bihar, with a sizeable population of weaker sections who were “intimidated” during polls.
Jaiswal was of the view that “paramilitary forces be deployed in villages with a heavy population of weaker sections like extremely backward classes, a few days in advance, and a flag march-like exercise be conducted to instil confidence among the voters”.
He said that in riverine areas, which have had a history of booth capturing, deployment of cavalry must also be ensured.
On the other hand, Kushwaha sought from the EC “identification, at the earliest, of all sensitive booths and the list be shared with us so that we could circulate the same among our cadres in order to prevent intimidation of voters from the weaker sections”
He said the EC also had a few suggestions for political parties. (PTI)
