Bihar Man Declared Dead by Electoral Commission Visits CEO Office to Assert He is Alive

Mintu Paswan from Bihar visited the Chief Electoral Officer's office to contest his declaration of death in the electoral rolls. He highlighted issues with voter registration and the lack of proper verification by officials.

A resident from Bihar's Bhojpur district, Mintu Paswan, approached the state's Chief Electoral Officer to prove he is alive. Earlier this week, Paswan was presented before the Supreme Court. He was accompanied to the CEO's office by a CPIML Liberation delegation. "I don't know whether I was seen as an apparition by the officials. The fact remains that I have been distraught to learn that I have been declared dead in the special intensive revision SIR," Paswan told reporters here.

Paswan expressed his distress over being declared deceased during a special intensive revision (SIR). He claimed that no booth level officer (BLO) had visited his residence. CPIML-L secretary Kunal, present at the event, stated, "Anomalies of this type are the very reason behind our general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya opposing SIR in the Supreme Court." Mintu is being asked to fill up Form 06, meant for registration of new voters, even though he has voted in the past.

Electoral Roll Anomalies

Kunal revealed that the BLO admitted to mistakenly removing Paswan's name instead of another person's. "He the BLO has confessed to his mistake and told the CEO that Mintus name got struck off instead of another person," said Kunal. If true, the deceased person's name should still appear on the draft electoral rolls. This error has forced Mintu to navigate bureaucratic hurdles.

Responding to journalists' questions, Kunal mentioned identifying 21 individuals wrongly declared dead, leading to their names being removed from electoral rolls. Of these, 10 were presented before the Supreme Court. The court acknowledged errors in only two cases: Mintu's and a woman's from Raghopur.

Supreme Court Intervention

Raghopur is represented by opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav, whose party RJD partners with the Left. Kunal expressed uncertainty about the Supreme Court's intervention effectiveness. "We do not know how effective the intervention by the Supreme Court is going to be," he said.

The Election Commission has been accused of ignoring claims and objections from political parties. Despite this, Kunal assured continued assistance for those needing their names reinstated on voter lists. "We shall keep helping as many people as possible in getting their names included in the voters list," Kunal said.

With inputs from PTI