On Tuesday, August 5, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) submitted a petition to the Supreme Court, requesting that the Election Commission be instructed to release the names and details of approximately 65 lakh electors who were excluded from the draft electoral rolls in Bihar.

Several petitions have already been lodged in the Supreme Court contesting the Election Commission’s order from June 24, which mandated a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls nationwide, beginning with Bihar. The court is set to hear these cases on August 12.

In its petition, the ADR has requested that the court compel the Election Commission to disclose the list of names and details, organized by Assembly constituency and part or booth, along with the reasons for the removal of the roughly 65 lakh electors from the draft roll published on August 1 (such as deceased, permanently relocated, duplicate, or untraceable).

The petitioner, represented by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, also pointed out that while the Election Commission had provided Booth Level Agents (BLAs) from political parties with a list of electors whose names were deleted, the reasons for their removal were not included in that list.

In the meantime, on Wednesday, August 6, the Congress party stated that the Opposition’s request for a discussion regarding the is in both Houses of Parliament. Jairam Ramesh, Congress’s general secretary in charge of communications, remarked that the chair in the Rajya Sabha remains a continuous entity despite the changes in membership, both scheduled and unscheduled. “Yesterday, the Deputy Chairman ruled that due to a statement made by the Lok Sabha Speaker on December 14, 1988, any issue related to the Election Commission cannot be discussed in Parliament. However, on July 21, 2023, the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, appointed by Modi, explicitly stated that ‘the Rajya Sabha is entitled to discuss anything under the sun with only one limitation,'” Ramesh noted in a post on X.

The Opposition parties have been demonstrating in both Houses of Parliament against the Special Intensive Revision, claiming that the EC’s actions are intended to “disenfranchise voters” in Bihar prior to the Assembly elections. They have been calling for a debate on this matter in both Houses.