Efforts underway to raise online submission of forms, says CEO

The state election department has received only 1.5 million applications online for the enrolment of names by electors in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) so far, indicating that the online medium of filling forms, especially by those temporarily staying outside the state, has remained less intense though the election officials maintained the online app had been made more user friendly recently, leading to an increase in submissions.

- Anirban Guha Roy

This is just 1.89% of the total 79 million electorate of Bihar. Till Wednesday, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said that 69.9 million enumeration forms had been collected, of which 64.7 million had been uploaded, which is 81.96%. About 5.4 million enumeration forms are yet to be collected with the SIR exercise to conclude on July 25.

The districts where the volume of online submission of forms has been high include Kishanganj and adjoining districts in Seemanchal and several districts in north Bihar.

Election officials did not specify the reason behind the high volume of online submissions from Kishanganj but many felt migration of people from the bordering district to other states for employment in big numbers could be one.

It is also speculated that voters of Kishanganj and adjoining districts, where minority population is high, may have preferred to go online in big number as a safe option to ensure their application and name get logged in the database in the backdrop of apprehensions in bordering districts that officials would scrutinise applications more stringently due to plaints and allegations about presence of illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries.

Chief electoral officer, Bihar, Vinod Singh Gunjiyal said, “We have got the figures of online submission of enumeration forms, which is around 15 lakh so far. Yes, Kishanganj has the highest number of online submissions. We do not know the reason behind it,” Gunjiyal said.