Bihar SIR: An Attempt to Push Marginalised Citizens Away from the Foundation of Indian Democracy

The foundation of democracy in India rests on the right to vote for every adult citizen. Since independence, the objective of our democracy has been to include all adult citizens in the electoral rolls, also known as the Universal Adult Franchise. However, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process initiated in Bihar has attempted to shake this foundation.

According to a notification issued by the Election Commission (EC) on June 24, the SIR process will be implemented across the country. The EC, after meeting with the CEOs of all states, has set the qualifying date (for voter lists) as January 1, 2026.

Preparations for SIR have begun in Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, and the southern states, but adequate attention has not been paid to the required standards, procedures, and protocols. Without addressing these issues, it would be inappropriate to even consider repeating this revision outside Bihar.

The EC argues that it is necessary to update and improve the voter list. However, the sudden deletion of such a large number of names in Bihar and the lack of transparency in the process have raised questions.

On June 24, the order suddenly unveiled a new process— ‘Special Intensive Revision’—a mechanism absent from the existing law. The EC cited Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which had been used only once before—in 2003, to rewrite the voter list for the Thakurdwara Assembly constituency in Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh). This is not a revision of the voter list, nor is it a routine process; it’s a complete rewriting of the voter list, requiring considerable time.

When the Intensive Revision was conducted in 2002-2003, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh were exempted from the intensive revision process. This was because Assembly elections were to be held in these states.

The 2002-03 revision, which lasted 243 days—nearly eight months from May 2002 until the final list was published in January 2003—also covered six other states—Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Punjab. In stark contrast, the entire SIR of 2025 was completed in just 97 days.

Whenever a thorough revision has been conducted in the country, electoral states and timelines have been taken into account. This is the first time the EC is implementing this voter revision process so swiftly, flouting its own manual.

Section 62 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RPA)

Once a person’s name is included in the voters’ list, they have the right to vote by law. This right is protected by Parliament and cannot be taken away. Even if a person is imprisoned, their name cannot be removed from the list, unless they are legally disqualified.

Section 16 of the RPA, 1950, and the procedure for removing names from the electoral roll guarantee that no one’s right to vote can be taken away without proper investigation and justification. In the Indian electoral system, only two legally valid reasons are valid for removing a person's name from the electoral roll—the person is declared mentally unfit; he is a foreigner.

To vote, a person must be included in the electoral roll of the constituency. However, even if they are included in the electoral roll, if they suffer from any of the disqualifications specified in Section 16 of the 1950 Act at the time of the election, they will lose their right to vote.

In the Indrajit Barua case, the Supreme Court clarified that due process and hearing of objections are necessary before removing someone's name from the electoral roll. Doing so without due process and without due process violates the constitutional rights of citizens.

Executive Powers and Limitations of the EC

The EC has some degree of authority to “do as it deems fit” (subsection 3), but within the rules of the RPA 1950 and the procedures established by Parliament. The EC can only make revisions as prescribed by law—annual revision, summary revision, intensive revision.

Provided that the notice and objection procedures are followed in accordance with the RPA and the rules. The EC can’t arbitrarily change the entire list by “rolling back” any “year” (such as 2003). Doing so would be bypassing Sections 21-23 of the RPA 1950.

Several Supreme Court judgments have held that the powers under Article 324 are not “unlimited”. For example, in Mohinder Singh Gill Vs Chief Election Commissioner, 1978, the Court held that the EC’s powers are plenary, but it cannot override laws made by Parliament.

Parliament has established very strict procedures for preparing and amending voter lists. The EC cannot ignore these procedures and arbitrarily change the entire list by rolling back.

The EC does not have the authority to scrutinise the entire list and remove names based on the 2003 criteria. If accepted, this could allow any government or commission to make arbitrary deletions from the voter list in the future. It also undermines the fundamental right to universal adult suffrage (Article 326).

Violation of the Election Commission’s 2023 Manual

During the SIR process, official rules, guidelines, or procedures issued by the EC in 2023 (the Manual) were not properly followed or ignored.

For example: According to the Election Commission Manual (paragraph 11.4.5), the ERO should have personally cross-verified every polling station where the voter deletion percentage was >two per cent. There are 84,675 such booths in the state where this violation occurred.

More than 400 to 600 names deleted at 64 booths—“Top 20 Booths” check (11.4.3) not followed by AERO.

The AERO was required to conduct field verification in specific cases:

Houses with more than 10 registered voters. Bihar has approximately 169 lakh households, each with more than 10 voters, representing approximately 278 lakhs voters. This would have required verification (some households had more than 800 voters). The AERO was required to physically verify these, which was not done. (Paragraph 11.4.3)

The AERO is required to conduct a random check of 1 per cent of the verifications done by the BLO. (This means selecting 1 per cent of the households/voters verified by the BLO from different locations and personally verifying them.) There is no record of this in the public domain.

Furthermore, (Paragraph 11.4.3) the ERO is instructed to verify booths where voters are added/deleted. If this had been followed properly, it would have required an audit of 1,988 booths where more than 200 voters were removed. There is no public record of whether the ERO did this in any district of Bihar.

Abnormal Sex Ratio: The ECI did not audit booths with abnormal sex ratios (paragraph 11.4.3).

The facts show: There are 29,509 booths where more than 60 per cent of the deleted voters are women.

There are 13,006 booths in the draft lists where the ratio of women to men is significantly lower than the normal (average). The rate of deletion of women's names is higher than normal.

At 2,023 booths, the ratio of women to men is so skewed that it deviates significantly from the average.

Now let’s look at the next step—Claims and Objections.

Violation of the One-Week Disposal Rule

Under Rule (11.3.6), any claim/objection must be resolved within one week of publication. However, this process was completely ignored in Bihar.

Every claim and objection must be updated daily on the CEO's website. This means that any citizen can see who has filed what claim or objection. The web application should be such that clicking on any row prints the entire application form. That is, the entire form should be available to citizens, not just the name or initials. (Paragraph 11.3.4).

At the end of each week, the ERO should personally present a list of claims and objections to representatives of all political parties. This will enable the parties to identify which claims or objections have been filed and prepare their responses (paragraph 11.3.5).

By September 14—two weeks after the deadline for claims and objections had passed—only 51 per cent of objection records and 39 per cent of new claims records had been uploaded to the Bihar CEO website. Downloading each form was not available in any case. In most cases, the ERO did not hold weekly meetings with political parties, let alone submit the list.

Election Commission’s Questionable Data

The EC stated that 16 lakh people applied to become new voters, information about which should have been made public within a week. Of these, the EC has provided data for 821,000 names, of which 200,000 names are useless because they lack complete details. Roughly speaking, only 651,000 data is useful.

Roughly speaking, if the EC were to provide data for the names of 100 people, it has released data for only 39 names so far (as of September 14). Of these, the number of objections is 180,000, meaning the EC has provided data for 51 per cent of the objections.

Now, let's look at this fraudulent Election Commission data:

Form 6 is used to register as a new voter, typically by people aged 18-20, or at most 25 years old.

But statistics show that: 41 per cent of those who filled Form 6 are those over 25 years old. Although it’s not illegal for those over 25 to fill Form 6, it’s surprising that someone, despite being eligible, hasn’t voted for seven years. When Form 6 is filled, the affidavit states: “I am applying to become a voter for the first time. Please include me.” Imagine how many people the EC has criminalised under the law?

This means they were forced to submit false affidavits, which is a crime under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Only 27 per cent of those who filled Form 6 are between 18 and 20 years old. Shockingly, 65 first-time voters were found to be over 100 years old.

Mistakes and Self-Objections in Form-7 (Objections)

As of September 14, 2025, 45,991 objections (Form-7) had been uploaded on the CEO Bihar website, while 180,235 people had filed objections.

What’s surprising is that in 26,598 (58 per cent) of these cases, the individual filed the objection against himself. The same person who was running around with his documents two months ago is now filing an objection against himself.

This could mean that either these people didn’t actually enrol and fake objections were filed in their names. Or both the Enumeration Form and Objection Form were filled out on paper without their knowledge.

Of those who objected, 555 people have objected on the grounds that they themselves are foreigners. Could there be a bigger joke than this?

Among those who objected, 22 people have declared themselves dead. Perhaps for the first time, the EC has given citizens this rare opportunity to declare their own “death”.

It’s likely that most of these people are in the list of 65 lakh voters who were deleted. This exposes the EC lie in the Supreme Court that no names were deleted incorrectly.

The EC told the court that only 33,000 people (out of the 65 lakh whose names were deleted) filed claims to have their names re-added, but on the other hand, more than 16 lakh “new voters” applied for inclusion. The reality is that even those whose names were already on the voter list and were removed from the draft were forced to fill out Form 6.

Pratyaksh Mishra is a public policy researcher.