Bihar Election: Voters Fear Mass Disenfranchisement

Aslam (name changed) has cast his vote many times in Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and local elections in Bihar. Yet, with the state assembly election scheduled for the end of this year, he now fears being deprived of his right to vote.

A resident of Kahra block in Saharsa district, Aslam’s anxiety grew after the Election Commission launched its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll. He possesses neither of the 11 documents demanded under the SIR. “I do have an Aadhaar card and a voter ID,” he says, “but they aren’t accepted. Both my parents have passed away. Even if I manage to obtain a residence certificate, where will I find their birth certificates? They have voter IDs from 2003, but their names no longer appear on the rolls.”

On 24 June, the Election Commission ordered the SIR in Bihar, to run from 25 June to 26 July 2025. Initially, the Commission required all voters to submit supporting documents, but it later relaxed some rules.

The 11 documents specified by the Commission are: any identity card or a pension payment order issued to regular employees or pensioners of the Union or state governments. Any ID/certificate/record issued before 1 July 1987. Any document issued by a government body, local authority, bank, post office, LIC or PSU. Birth certificate, passport, or educational certificate. Original residence certificate issued by a state agency. Caste certificate for OBC, SC or ST. Forest-rights certificate. Family register issued by state or local authorities. Title deed or official proof of house or land. NRC documents (not applicable in Bihar).

Because Aslam was born in 1990, he must also present either his parents’ birth certificates or proof that their names appeared on the 2003 rolls.

Bihar is India’s most flood-prone state; over 70 percent of its land is affected. Saharsa lies in this flood belt.

In Adaraha village, Triveniganj block, Supaul district submerged each monsoon by the river Kosi, most of the roughly 700 households send their young men to Punjab, Haryana and Delhi for work. “When floodwater enters, we rebuild our homes twice a year,” residents say.

Bhuneswar Mandal, 45, has heard vaguely about the SIR but has received no detailed information, nor has any official come to update the rolls. “They’ll change our names through Aadhaar, I’m told,” he says. “If an officer turns up, we’ll hand over whatever papers we have such as Aadhaar, voter ID, the house tax receipt.” 

Village head Bablu Chaudhary adds, “Collecting the documents the Commission demands is a huge challenge. We’re trying to help, but it’s tough. Many people’s names will be left out.”

 According to the final electoral list published in January, Bihar has 78,022,933 voters out of which 37,257,477 are women and 40,763,352 are men. Around 60 percent (about 49.6 million) already went through a similar verification exercise in 2003 and need submit nothing. Roughly 30 million, however, now scramble to gather the required papers.

A large share of Bihar’s electorate, especially men, lives outside the state. A 2022 Knowledge, Attitude and Practice survey commissioned by the Election Commission found 21 percent of voters were migrants. These are the hardest to verify.

Flood-hit districts such as Saharsa, Supaul, Kishanganj, Purnia and Katihar see the highest migration. In 2018, a cooking-fire spread through Kutha Bhetta village in Satkauwa panchayat, Dighalbank block, Kishanganj, destroying 117 households’ papers. “Where will people find the documents the Commission wants now?” asks Nazrul, a panchayat member.

Opposition parties are not alone in criticising the SIR but also ordinary citizens harbour deep misgivings.

“This isn’t voter-list revision but it’s NRC by the back door,” Nazrul fumes. “Everything else in India runs on Aadhaar, yet for the Commission Aadhaar and voter ID are invalid. In Kishanganj, fewer than four percent of people, even those born after 2000, have birth certificates. Forget anyone born before 1987.” Anxiety, he says, is spreading fast.

Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav calls the drive “an attempt to weaken democracy.” On X he wrote, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordered the Election Commission to scrap Bihar’s entire electoral roll and, within 25 days, build a new one using paper proof dated prior to 1987. Panicked by electoral defeat, they are plotting to strip Biharis of the vote.”

BJP leader Janak Ram counters, “The Opposition wants to play politics with Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. Bihar’s people won’t be misled.”

Between July and August, more than 100,000 booth-level officers (BLOs) will distribute and collect forms. One BLO, speaking anonymously, says, “The number of forms returned is nowhere near the number we hand out. Non-submission means deletion. I expect 30–40 percent of names will vanish from the final list.”

“The 11 documents aren’t common,” the officer adds. “Aadhaar, voter ID, PAN card, driving licence, those are common. Including ration cards would have made life easy.” Workload for officials and paperwork for voters are both daunting, he says.

Women face the greatest hurdles. “A woman married into another village must prove not only her in-laws’ details but also her parents’. How can she gather both sets of papers in 25 days? In 2003 the same exercise took two years and the population has grown since.”

 Amid the uproar, the Election Commission has clarified it is testing only voters’ eligibility to vote, not their citizenship. CPI-ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya calls that claim “the most dangerous part.” “Two classes of citizens would emerge,” he argues, one those who can vote and another those who cannot. “Once the right to vote is gone, other rights will follow. Migrant labourers, the poor and Muslims will be the first victims. What starts in Bihar will spread elsewhere.”

Former TISS professor Pushpendra believes the Commission aims to “eliminate a large segment of voters.”

“If there’s no bias, every group will lose names; but the criteria suggest they target specific voters,” he says, likening the exercise to NRC.

Dipankar Bhattacharya agrees. “Roughly 45 million people must prove citizenship in one month. The documents required are those people usually lack, while the papers they do have aren’t accepted. Two crore voters could be trapped.”

“This is bigger than NRC,” he continues. “People knew about NRC in advance; it took six years to implement. Here the Commission wants to finish in a month. It combines NRC with demonetisation. That’s why we demand its withdrawal.”