NRC 2.0: Mahua Moitra Challenges ECI’s Bihar Electoral Poll Revision In SC

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Sunday petitioned the Supreme Court to set aside India’s Election Commission (ECI)’s controversial order to revise Bihar’s electoral rolls just ahead of the state’s assembly elections in November 2025. Moitra’s writ is the second plea filed before the apex court in as many days. 

On Saturday, July 5, Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO headed by Prashant Bhushan, on Saturday challenged Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) revision of electoral roll in Bihar ahead of the state’s assembly election. In a writ filed before India’s Supreme Court, ADR said the SIR “disproportionately affects economically and socially vulnerable communities and resemble the structure and consequences of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which has been widely critiqued.”

The ECI’s June 24, 2025 order, “, if not set aside, can lead to large-scale disenfranchisement of eligible voters in the country thereby undermining democracy and free and fair elections in the country,” said the TMC MP’s petition filed by advocate Neha Rathi. 

While asking for the ECI order in Bihar to be set aside, Moitra has sought directions from the apex courts “to restrain Election Commission of India from issuing similar orders for Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Roll in other states of the country” as well. Moitra added that she has “information that the said exercise is stated to be replicated in West Bengal from August 2025 for which instructions have already been given to EROs.” 

Moita alleges that the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) as ordered to be completed in Bihar in September—a couple of months ahead of the hotly-contested Bihar state elections—is one of futility. Calling it the first exercise in which “electors whose names are already there in electoral rolls and who have already voted multiple times in are being asked to prove their eligibility.” The petition said.

The ECI order also arbitrarily excludes government-issued and accepted forms of identification such as Aadhaar and ration cards. Moitra’s petition points out that this would put a“huge burden on the voters who are at a huge risk of getting disenfranchised.” The petition includes field reports from Bihar showing that “lakhs of residents across rural and marginalised areas in Bihar are at imminent risk of disenfranchisement due to these stringent and unreasonable requirements.”

Calling ECI’s June 24 order “illegal, Moitra says it fails to follow the legal procedures set out in the Constitution and the RP Act. The SIR’s requirements for electoral roll inclusion such as proof of citizenship of a voters’ mother and father contravened both the principles of adult suffrage (Article 326) and the Representation of People Act 1950.

“It is settled law that when a law requires a particular thing to be done in a particular manner, it has to be done in that manner alone or not at all. ECI's order dated 24.06.2025 is illegal,” says her petition. 

Saying there was not “adequate procedural protection” for Bihar’s marginalised voters, the petition says the SIR is “absurd” as it “requires voters to again prove their eligibility as voters through a set of documents” when “on the basis of their existing eligibility most existing voters have already voted multiple times in state as well as general elections.”

As ADR did, Moitra too points out that the ECI conducted a Special Summary Revision (SSR) between October 2024 and January 2025 with existing Bihar electoral roll which were then revised on January 6, this year. “Thus, ECIs decision to conduct a second revision in such a draconian manner in a poll-bound state is unjustified and unreasonable,” it added.