Bihar elections: Voter list deletions, Tejashwi's stand-off dominate poll narratives

One is the fate of 65 lakh – or 6.5 million - people whose names have been deleted (read disenfranchised) by the Election Commission (EC) from the state’s draft electoral rolls after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Two is the potential fate of front runner chief ministerial candidate, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s Tejashwi Yadav.

Both involve significant roles by constitutional bodies, who are going to determine the fate of political parties and their leaders. The twin scourges of inflation and unemployment, often the staple during elections, have seemingly receded into the background.

EC under pressure

On August 6, the Supreme Court asked the EC to provide a detailed response to an application seeking the particulars and reasons for the deletion of 65 lakh voters from the Bihar draft electoral roll. The draft roll was published on August 1.

Responding to the court directive, the EC told the Supreme Court on August 9 that no eligible voter in Bihar will be removed from the electoral rolls without prior notice, an opportunity to be heard and a reasoned order, stressing that “strict directions” have been issued to prevent wrongful deletions during the ongoing SIR.

The poll body has been put under pressure by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who this week has reiterated his vote theft allegations and slammed EC for demanding an affidavit under oath from him to support his claims.

Also read: Can freebies help Nitish govt tide over anti-incumbency, fight SIR infamy?

Earlier, the Commission asked Tejashwi Yadav to prove his claim that his name was deleted from Bihar’s electoral roll, seeking the EPIC card number mentioned by him in the press conference on Saturday. Hours after Tejashwi made the claim, the poll body refuted it, saying his name was there in the draft voter list.

An EPIC number is a 10-digit unique identification number that every single voter ID card carries.

Reasons unknown

On the electoral list revision, the application in the apex court, filed on behalf of the NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said the reasons for deletion were various, including deaths, permanent shifting out of the state, duplication of names and untraceability, among others. However, the reason for removing each name is not individually shown, either constituency-wise or booth-wise, in the draft roll, the application said.

Surprisingly, under instructions from the EC, Bihar’s election apparatus had in the not-too-distant-past completed a special summary revision of the electoral rolls, records showed. The work began in June 2024 and was underway till November 2024.

After the elaborate exercise, the finalised list was uploaded as recently as January 2025, revealed EC records.

EC notice to Tejashwi

The EC’s notice to Tejashwi came after the BJP slammed the former Bihar deputy chief minister, alleging that he had committed a crime by keeping "two voter ID cards". The BJP pressed hard.

"The Congress and RJD have been thoroughly exposed. Did you (Yadav) lie under oath? Did you present wrong facts to the Election Commission?" BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra asked at a press conference.

While it needs no rocket scientist to surmise that the BJP is gunning for the RJD leader, the point is how far can it go? Can the EC disqualify Yadav on a technical point and keep him out of the election process? If that were to happen, it would come at a time when Tejashwi is reportedly turning the tide, making the omission of 65 lakh voters in Bihar potentially a winning poll strategy.

Also read: Tejashwi claims his name missing from draft electoral rolls, EC calls it 'baseless'

Just as abrogation of the Constitution became a weapon for the Samajwadi Party (SP) and INDIA bloc in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in UP, the denial of voting rights may have consequences against the NDA in Bihar. Extending the arc of criticism, Tejashwi is telling voters that exclusion from the voters list would deprive them of the many rights that the state, theoretically, offers, like housing, free rations and means of livelihood.

Tejashwi's fate

Crucially, for the RJD leader, could a missing name lead to disqualification?

According to the Representation of the People (RP) Act, 1951, it is not mandatory for a candidate to be registered in the same constituency they wish to contest from. What is essential is that their name figures in the electoral roll of any constituency across the country.

So, if Tejashwi’s name has been deleted from Patna’s Patliputra constituency, and he is still registered as a voter in another constituency, say, Darbhanga or Gopalganj, he remains eligible to contest elections.

However, if the RJD leader’s name has been deleted from all the electoral rolls, and he is not registered as a voter anywhere in the country, he cannot contest any election, assembly or parliamentary, until he gets re-enrolled.

Senior journalist Deepak Kochgave believes anti-incumbency is very strong in Bihar and the RJD leader is making his presence felt. ``Knocking off no less than 65 lakh voters is making the people anxious. The long-term outcome of such an act is not good news for a party hoping to win elections,’’ he pointed out.

Keeping non-citizens away

While Nitish and home minister Amit Shah told a rally in Bihar on August 8 that Rahul Gandhi’s charge that the deletion was meant to disenfranchise non-BJP voters, was false and that the Congress leader was looking for an "excuse for defeat even before the election," the fact is that in 2024, the EC told a parliamentary standing committee that the existing legal provisions were enough to keep non-citizens from enrolling as electors.

The parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice had in its report on August 4, 2023, recommended that the EC come up with a legal mechanism to ensure that non-citizens with Aadhaar do not end up linking their Aadhaar and Voter IDs.

Also read: 'SC intervention must to goad EC to act on Rahul's vote theft charges' | Capital Beat

Responding, the EC had said: “As per Section 16 of RP Act, 1950, a non-citizen is disqualified for registration in an electoral roll. Therefore, a non-citizen is not allowed to enroll even if he possesses an Aadhaar Card. Aadhaar is not a citizenship document. Further, under Section 31 of the RP Act, 1950, making false declaration in connection with the preparation, revision or correction of an electoral roll or the inclusion or exclusion of any entry in or from an electoral roll is a punishable offence with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine or both. Hence, there is already legal provision available in the present election law to prevent a non-citizen from enrollment.”

But clearly, uploading millions of documents and verifying it in such a short period of time, with ill-trained booth level officers (BLOs), as laid down by the EC, is bound to have implications.

To quote just one anomaly, according to the ADR petition submitted by lawyer Prashant Bhushan before the Supreme Court, “Information obtained for two districts, namely Darbhanga and Kaimur, show the marking ‘not recommended by BLO’ (block level officer) against a large percentage of electors whose enumeration forms have been uploaded. In Darbhanga and Kaimur, 10.6 per cent and 12.6 per cent of electors, respectively, have been marked ‘not recommended by BLO’.''

In the assembly elections, the final results are big numbers.

On the flip side, the EC has flagged several changes in the voter list after conducting the SIR. The poll body said that it has discovered that 18 lakh of the registered voters have passed away, 26 lakh electors have shifted to other constituencies while seven lakh were duplicate voters!

Opposition rattled

While it is Bihar for the moment, Opposition politicians, particularly West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, are not too amused because the special intensive revision is all set to arrive at their doorsteps next. In 2026, four states go to polls: West Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

While the Congress has also been questioning EC’s role in Maharashtra, Haryana and Delhi assembly elections, the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal is apprehensive about implications of any such revision in the state ahead of assembly elections scheduled next year.

The EC is planning a countrywide SIR, though no dates have been announced.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has publicly stated that she would not permit SIR in her state while Tamil Nadu chief minister, MK Stalin, last month came down heavily on the Bihar SIR project saying that the revision is being misused to quietly remove voters from disadvantaged communities, thus tilting the balance in favour of the BJP.

“This is not about reform. It is about engineering outcomes,” Stalin said in his post on X handle.

Clearly then, with the SIR sought to be implemented on an all-India basis, in the days ahead, elections could become a constitutional issue rather than merely a political issue.