6.5 mn Bihar voters marked for deletion; Oppn claims 20 mn are at risk

EC asks electors to file objections until September 1

As many as 6.5 million electors — or 8.31 per cent of Bihar’s 78.9 million registered voters — stand to lose their franchise in the Assembly elections, scheduled for October-November this year, according to final data from a month-long Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll released on Sunday evening by the Election Commission of India (EC). 

The Opposition is expected to continue challenging the legality and intent of the SIR, which it claims will disenfranchise millions from marginalised communities. The matter is being contested in Parliament, on the ground in Bihar, and in the Supreme Court, where a hearing on multiple petitions is scheduled for Monday. At a press conference on Sunday evening, leaders of the INDIA bloc alleged that around 20 million voters in Bihar risk being removed from the rolls by the time the EC concludes the “claims and objections” phase. 

The Commission will publish a fresh electoral roll on August 1 and has set a one-month period thereafter, until September 1, for electors to file objections to incorrect exclusions or inclusions. “Why are political parties making such a fuss now?” a senior EC official said on condition of anonymity. “Why don’t they ask their 160,000 booth-level associates (BLAs) to submit claims and objections during the designated period? The draft list is not final, as clearly stated in the SIR orders.” 

Of the 160,813 BLAs affiliated with political parties, 53,338 are from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 36,550 from the Janata Dal (United), 47,506 from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), 17,549 from the Congress, and 5,870 from smaller parties aligned with either the National Democratic Alliance or the INDIA bloc. 

In a previous hearing, the EC had argued in the Supreme Court that the SIR enhances electoral integrity by “weeding out ineligible persons” from the rolls. It also contended that its June 24 decision to conduct the revision involved all major political parties, which had agreed to reach out to eligible voters but are now opposing the process in court. According to Sunday’s data, the number of BLAs rose by 16 per cent during the SIR, from 138,680 to 160,813. 

In a rejoinder affidavit, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the lead petitioner and a citizens’ electoral reform group, alleged that booth-level officers (BLOs), distinct from BLAs associated with political parties, were found signing enumeration forms without consent. In some cases, it claimed, forms were submitted for deceased individuals or those who had not filled them. “Many voters reported that their forms were submitted online despite never meeting a BLO or signing any documents. Forms of even dead individuals have been reported as submitted,” the affidavit stated. 

At Sunday’s press conference, INDIA bloc leaders, including the Congress’ Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is representing some petitioners in the Supreme Court, the CPI(ML)’s Dipankar Bhattacharya, and the RJD’s Manoj Jha, contested the EC’s version of events. Bhattacharya questioned the completeness of data shared with parties: “This data doesn’t specifically identify those claimed to be dead or untraceable. How does the EC expect us to decode this quickly?” He further asked how the summary revision in January 2025 failed to detect the deceased now being flagged. “Did 2.2 million people die in six months? Or was the January revision a failure? This appears to be an exclusionary and arbitrary exercise.” 

Singhvi questioned the timing of the SIR, so close to the Assembly polls, and called on the Commission to shed “institutional arrogance” and de-link the revision from the election. 

“The recent comments by the EC and its refusal to accept Aadhaar, election photo identity cards, and ration cards as valid documents clearly point towards the fact that the entire SIR process is a citizenship verification process,” Singhvi said, and detailed the laws around the citizenship verification process, and relevant authorities, including tribunals, tasked with it. He cited the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Lal Babu Hussein and Others versus Electoral Registration Officer in 1995. The SC said in its verdict that a person already on the electoral roll must be presumed eligible, including on the question of citizenship.

The ruling stated that the burden of citizenship proof cannot be shifted to voters. 

According to the final SIR data, forms were received from 72.4 million, or 91.69 per cent of the 78.9 million electors as of June 24. The EC reported identifying 2.2 million deceased individuals, 3.6 million who had either shifted or were untraceable, and 700,000 who were enrolled in multiple locations. For the 3.6 million found to have shifted or missing, BLOs either did not locate them or failed to receive forms due to reasons such as migration, refusal to register, or non-submission by July 25. Final determinations will be made after scrutiny by August 1. Names found enrolled at multiple places will be retained only once, the EC said. 

57 million text messages, ads in 246 newspapers 

The EC stated that SIR had met key goals, including efforts to ensure temporary migrants were not left out. To increase awareness, it sent explanatory text messages to 57 million registered mobile numbers and placed full-page advertisements in 246 Hindi-language newspapers with a combined circulation of 26 million. More than 1.6 million forms were filed online, with 1.3 million downloaded and printed, totalling 2.9 million submissions. The EC said it would now focus on enrolling young voters.