As Bihar parties sharpen attack on EC over voters list, poll panel fact checks leaders

As opposition parties sharpened their attack on the Election Commission over its intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, the poll authority on Wednesday fact-checked some state leaders, rejecting as "baseless" their claims about the exercise.

Responding to a social media post by RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha that the EC did not give time for a meeting over special intensive revision, the poll panel said he is not an authorised representative of his party to seek time.

The EC said party presidents were recently asked to share the names of leaders for interacting with the poll body on various issues. But Jha's name was not shared by RJD as its authorised representative.

For the past two days, the EC has been using the hashtag 'ECIFactCheck' to counter what it claims is misinformation being spread over the revision exercise.

The Commission also rejected claims of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav that the intensive revision will disenfranchise crores of Bihar voters, saying nearly four crore enumeration forms distributed by the poll machinery to electors have been received back.

An audio of a district magistrate asking booth level officers to focus on distributing forms and not collecting documents was shared by the RJD. The Bihar chief electoral officer supported the DM, saying, as per the instructions of the EC, document collection has to be taken up at a later stage.

The BJP's IT department head, Amit Malviya, took to X to support the EC's fact-check exercise.

"Interesting to see EC fact-check the usual suspects - Yogendra Yadav, Karan Thapar, Supriya Shrinate, Mallikarjun Kharge and Ravish Kumar - for spreading fake news on the Special Intensive Revision of the voter roll in Bihar.

"These self-proclaimed champions of democracy were quick to peddle misinformation, but the Election Commission's clarification has exposed their deliberate spin. It was high time they were called out," he wrote.