PATNA, Aug. 11 -- The Election Commission of India's (ECI) stance in the Supreme Court of not publishing a separate list of 6.5 million deleted Bihar voters separately from the published draft rolls invited mix reactions from state political parties. While those in the Opposition bloc INDIA insist that deleted electors should be mentioned separately for "public scrutiny", parties of the ruling NDA backed the decision and working of the poll panel. In an affidavit filed in the SC, the ECI has said that it is under no legal obligation to prepare or publish a separate list of nearly 6.5 million names not included in Bihar's draft electoral rolls, or to disclose reasons for their non-inclusion. The ECI's latest stance comes as in Bihar, on August 7-8, the poll panel had run an initiative through booth level officers (BLOs) to share names of those deleted from the draft updated electoral rolls published after completion of the first phase of Special Intensive Revision ( SIR) with the party appointed booth level agents (BLAs) of recognised political parties. But the Opposition parties have called the exercise as "incomplete" as no consolidated list of deleted names with specific reasons was made public. As part of the two-day initiative, according to state election department officials aware of the details, around .16 million BLAs of political parties were informed of the deleted names at 90,712 booths across the state. However, these BLAs, poll officials said, were unable to consolidate the list of deleted names in their respective areas. Leader of Opposition in the Bihar assembly Tejashwi Yadav said on Sunday in a press conference that he has been asking for the list of 6.5 million deleted names from the draft rolls published after the first phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. "I have been demanding from the ECI for names of the 6.5 million voters whose names have been deleted in the SIR exercise, with their booth number, booth name and reason for deletion. The EC has not responded to any of my requests," he said. He said the ECI should release the list of names deleted on specific grounds for "public scrutiny" and also wondered whether the deletions on account of death were supported by any documentary evidence. CPI-ML (liberation), a key left ally of INDIA bloc, said that the deleted electors should be specified in the form of a consolidated list. "Our primary concern is that the ECI has a responsibility towards the elector and every elector deleted from the rolls has a right to know why his /her name was omitted. We feel the ECI is abdicating its responsibility. Moreover, our party has filed complaints and action too has been taken in some cases. But the ECI is claiming no objections have been filed by political parties just to show that the SIR is blemishless," said general secretary Dipankar Bhattarcharya. Congress legislature party leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan said the sharing of names of electors deleted from the rolls by state poll officials is full of discrepancies. The ruling NDA constituent parties on the other hand said that the ECI was doing a right job and that the Opposition parties are unnecessarily making hullabaloo over nothing. "The ECI has shared the names of those deleted from the draft rolls with the BLAs of all parties. Now, if BLAs find any person wrongly omitted, there is always a scope for addition by redressal mechanism opened by the ECI. The ECI is working in a transparent manner," said Prem Ranjan Patel, state spokesperson of the BJP. JD(U) spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan said, "The Supreme Court is hearing petitions filed by parties and other bodies. But even then the opposition parties are making all sorts of allegations to create a sense of doubt among common masses."...