Why Bihar’s final electoral roll has 47 lakh less voters

The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday (September 30) released Bihar’s final voter list after carrying out a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state. The voter count has dropped by six per cent in the final roll.

The poll body had ordered SIR in June to revise Bihar’s electoral rolls, triggering outrage among the opposition parties. The move was challenged in court amid fears of it ending up as a citizenship check drive.

But what’s in the Bihar final voter list after SIR? We will take a look.

What was Bihar SIR?

On June 24, the Election Commission announced a “special intensive revision” of the electoral roll in poll-bound Bihar. It asked all existing voters who were not on the electoral rolls in 2003 to provide documentation proving their eligibility by July 26.

Explaining its reason for conducting an intensive revision, the poll body said: “Various reasons such as rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants have necessitated the conduct of an intensive revision so as to ensure integrity and preparation of error-free electoral rolls.”

The EC also cited its constitutional obligation to ensure non-citizens are not enrolled in the electoral roll. It further said it will conduct a special intensive revision for the entire country.

Electors in Bihar whose names were not recorded in the 2003 electoral rolls — an estimated 2.93 crore voters —were asked by the EC to submit at least one of 11 documents establishing their date and place of birth for themselves and their parents, along with an enumeration form.

The accepted documents to establish proof of citizenship were a passport, birth certificate, SC/ST certificate, matriculation or educational certificate issued by recognised boards/universities, permanent residence certificate, family register, forest right certificate and land/house allotment certificate by the government.

The EC excluded Aadhaar and PAN as acceptable documents for the exercise.

This was challenged in the Supreme Court. The EC, however, defended the new requirements, saying Aadhaar was not proof of citizenship and that there was “widespread issuance of bogus ration cards”.

The top court did not stay the exercise, but directed the poll body to accept Aadhaar as a “12th document”.

EC releases final voter list in Bihar

The Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls came to an end on Tuesday, with the EC releasing the final voter list.

The final number of electors has decreased by 47 lakh from the 7.9 crore as on June 24, before the exercise. The final Bihar voter list includes 7.42 crore voters.

The final figure has increased by 17.87 lakh compared to the draft list issued on August 1, which had 7.24 crore electors after the names of 65 lakh voters were deleted.

Of these 65 lakh names struck off the draft list, 22 lakh were shown as dead, 36 lakh as permanently migrated or absent, and seven lakh as already enrolled at another place.

As many as 21.53 lakh new electors have been added to the final Bihar voter list, while 3.66 lakh names have been removed, leading to a net increase of 17.87 lakh.

The EC has not revealed the number of male and female electors in the final voter list. However, the percentage of women electors of the total voters fell from 47.75 per cent in January to 47.15 per cent after SIR, sources told Indian Express.

In the final voter list, of the 3.66 lakh deleted from the final list, over two lakh were due to migration, about 60,000 were dead, and 80,000 were duplicate enrollments, the newspaper reported.

This means the possibility of foreigners (if any) being removed from the list is negligible, sources in the Bihar CEO office said to Indian Express. 

There could be minimal changes in the final voter list. The EC has said that eligible voters who want to be included in the roll can do that up to 10 days before the last date for filing nominations for the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls.

What next?

The release of the Bihar voter list has increased chatter about the announcement of the poll dates. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar is likely to visit Bihar before the announcement of dates, around October 5-6, reported Times of India.

The Bihar Assembly elections are expected to be held soon after Chhath, a prominent festival in the state, which will be celebrated in the last week of October.

Meanwhile, the ECI is planning to conduct a special intensive revision of electoral rolls across India. As per Indian Express, the poll body could review the Bihar exercise and decide on the method and timing of launching SIR in the other parts of the country.  

With inputs from agencies