After West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Bihar has also said that persons deleted during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls will not receive welfare benefits, The Indian Express reported.
Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary told the newspaper that the persons “will not be entitled to any government benefits, including ration and other welfare schemes”.
Choudhary was also quoted as saying that bank passbooks of persons excluded from the voter list would also be cancelled “in due course of time”. It is unclear whether an order has been passed to this end.
Choudhary replaced Nitish Kumar as the chief minister on April 15.
In July, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court that persons will not cease to be Indian citizens only on the grounds that they were found ineligible to vote under the electoral roll revision exercise.
The comments by Choudhary came a day after the newly-elected BJP government in neighbouring West Bengal said that women whose names were deleted during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the state will not receive benefits of the state government’s Annapurna Bhandar scheme.
Under the scheme, women will receive a monthly cash handout of Rs 3,000. It is set to replace the Trinamool Congress government’s Lakshmi Bhandar programme from June 1, which gave beneficiaries Rs 1,500 per month.
Agnimitra Paul, the minister for women and child development and social justice, told IANS that the electoral toll will be analysed. “Those names that have been removed during SIR and used to receive Lakshmi Bhandar benefits, many of them will not get it now...” she was quoted as saying.
She asked: “Those who have died, how will they receive Lakshmi Bhandar? Those who are not Indian citizens, how will they receive Lakshmi Bhandar? There will be an analysis of whose names have been removed.”
The Assembly elections in West Bengal followed a special intensive revision of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission.
By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the electorate before the process began, had been removed.
Ahead of the polling, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before the tribunals. Of these, seven lakh were against names being included in the rolls and 27 lakh were filed by persons who were excluded. Appellate tribunals had allowed 1,607 names to be added back to the electoral rolls.
On Monday, the Bengal government indicated that persons whose appeals are pending before the tribunals would continue to receive the benefits.
In Bihar, the exercise was carried out between July and September, ahead of the Assembly elections in November. Forty-seven lakh voters in the state were excluded from the final electoral roll.
Concerns had been raised that the revision process could disenfranchise several voters.
Edited by Tanya Shrivastava
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