SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Godda: Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Jharkhand has come under the spotlight yet again after a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Booth-Level Agent (BLA) was arrested for allegedly submitting roughly 200 Form 7s, which also named a Booth-Level Officer.
The BLA identified as Vinay Kumar Mandal was held on Thursday, September 3, and is currently out on bail. A first information report (FIR) was registered under Sections 336 (forgery) and Section 352 (intentional insult intended to provoke breach of peace) as well as Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act dealing with “false declaration” on the Form 7.
Complainant Mukarram Ansari and BLO Sajida Bibi of Booth No 231 in Godda’s Pachrukhi village submitted that Mandal’s Form 7 applications, used for requesting deletion of a name from the electoral roll, were all targeting voters from the minority community.
Ansari, whose name was also sought for deletion in one of the nearly 200 Form 7s, said all voters flagged in Mandal’s applications were genuine voters, according to The Indian Express. Mandal submitted these documents to BLO Sajida Bibi, who said her name, along with that of her husband, was also mentioned in the applications.
Bibi said that Mandal brought nearly 200 such forms on August 29 and asked for them to be signed and given a receipt. She initially refused to sign, wanting to verify the forms first. “I later checked and found they were all Form 7s. There were many names, including my own and my husband’s,” she said.
Godda Muffasil police station officer confirmed that Mandal was arrested on Thursday and subsequently released on bail within hours.
BLA claims to be aware of how Form 7 is being used
Mandal has maintained that he only did what he was asked to and that Bibi had agreed to receive the forms and provide him with a receipt. He added that Bibi called him to the village to collect the forms but that he was “surrounded by several people and beaten up.”
He said he was forcibly held from 9.30 am to 1.30 pm and was only released after a villager intervened.
Mandal also said he knew that a Form 7 can be used to raise a claim or objection before a BLO, and that before any action is taken, the BLO would check its details. While admitting that the roughly 200 forms submitted contained mostly Muslim voters, Mandal noted that similar forms were filed by a BLA in his predominantly Hindu home village.
Jharkhand SIR standoff
The development comes as BLOs in Godda district approached higher authorities after receiving mass deletion forms from BJP agents. It resulted in a standoff with the party agents accusing BLOs of refusing to sign the forms, and the latter claiming the forms were for genuine voters and were against Muslims alone.
Amid the back-and-forth, Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K. Ravi Kumar had stated that BLAs can submit forms in bulk and the BLOs cannot refuse to accept them. “However, the BLA has to submit a declaration that the information provided in the form is true. We have to check if the BLA has submitted a declaration or not,” Kumar had said at the time.
The Election Commission published the draft electoral rolls in Jharkhand on Wednesday, September 2, after deleting over 43.61 lakh names. The state had 2.64 crore electors before the enumeration exercise began.
The EC has extended the deadline for filing claims and objections under the SIR of electoral rolls in the state to September 15, while the final publication of the revised voter list has been deferred to October 19, an official said.
SOURCE : SIASAT
