Compiled by C.ARUNO, FAZLEENA AZIZ and R. ARAVINTHAN
AN estimated 6.5 million voters risked being removed from the electoral roll of India’s Bihar state, Malaysia Nanban reported.
These numbers included 2.2 million deceased voters and 3.5 million people who had migrated or could not be traced.
Bihar is one of the most populous states in India with nearly 131 million people.
Its electorate has about 78.9 million names.
The latest clean-up exercise is done by the Election Commission of India, which is undertaking a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to verify and digitise the electoral roll.
The exercise involved around 400,000 volunteers, 150,000 agents of recognised political parties, 98,000 booth officers and thousands of election officers.
Other voters who risked being kicked out from the electoral roll are the 700,000 people who had registered in multiple locations.
The move, which could affect up to 9% of the state’s electorate, has triggered nationwide protests, besides being challenged in the Supreme Court.
(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)
