With Bihar CM Nitish Kumar having lost his sheen as capable administrator, a well-timed nudge may be needed to install a BJP face with the help of EC’s SIR
The nationwide controversy generated by the Election Commission (EC)'s decision to quickly come up with a new electoral roll based on massive deletions is thought to benefit the core voting constituencies of the BJP comprising both traditional caste elites and the modern ones formed over the recent decades – in Bihar and other states.
However, in Bihar, there is an added twist which may fuel a political crisis of some proportions. Bihar is the only state in northern India, not counting Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir (demoted to the status of Union Territory in 2019), where the BJP has not had its own chief minister although it has been a part of coalition governments.
There are hardly any Muslims left in Punjab for the Hindu-supremacist BJP to gain traction after the partition of 1947. In Jammu and Kashmir, there are too few Hindus in the Valley to be brought under the communal canopy as the Muslim population is far too dominant.
Also read: Bihar SIR ground report: BLOs speak on accusations, EC targets, challenges
The BJP does hold sway in the Jammu division after the partition-era troubles but is yet to have its own chief minister.
Why Bihar is special
This makes the Bihar case more striking, considering the fact that it is a ‘normal’ Hindi-belt state and the most numerous after Uttar Pradesh, and a state in which the BJP has gained considerable influence in recent times. However, its jinx of missing the bus for the chief minister's post continues.
Assembly polls held on the basis of a fiddled electoral roll, as is widely suspected, must be brought into play on an emergency basis, even if this means braving well-founded allegations of massive irregularities and political corruption. This may just aid the BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to propel one of its own into the chair of the chief minister.
If such a denouement were to materialise following an election victory, it will boost Modi’s firm hold over his government and the ruling party.
Read: EC faces Bengal teachers' 'rebellion' as Bihar-like SIR move gathers storm
This is key at a juncture when there is pretty much open discord between Modi and Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
There are further complications arising from the seemingly sudden resignation of the vice-president of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, and the question of finding a new party chief for BJP.
JP Nadda has been in the saddle for six years now and the RSS would like his successor to have its approval, too, besides Modi’s.
Is a coup in the offing?
A poll win in Bihar on a tailored voters’ list would augur well for Modi in these circumstances. But there are straws in the wind that might suggest that the BJP may seek to seize an opportunity to emplace its chief minister in Bihar even before the election is held.
Read: Bihar electoral roll revision: Elitist and arbitrary, SIR!
Given the failing mental capacities of incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose unpredictable and ad hoc remarks inside and outside the Assembly often embarrass both the government and the coalition partners, the temptation of finding a new leader may not be just theoretical.
Kumar, in fact, is just about hanging on. He has long lost his sheen as a capable administrator and a wily political operative. A small, well-planned, well-timed, nudge may be all it takes. Should such an election-eve move succeed, Modi’s party, now directly in the saddle, will be better placed to manoeuvre the poll in a way it likes, building on the groundwork done by the EC through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
In an indication of sorts, the media, usually tilted toward the BJP, has been playing up the serious crime graph in the state, marked by murders, kidnappings, and criminal assaults on women in recent times--something they may have taken note in a more muted manner earlier.
Political calculations need to be made about the public reaction to a coup just before an election, should it come to pass. Or, in the event of upstaging the current chief minister, will President’s rule come into play?
The situation could indeed be complex.
Also Read: Two days to SIR hearing in SC: Anjali Bharadwaj has tough questions for EC
Questions on EC's integrity
The leading Opposition parties in Bihar – the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) and the Congress – are pointing to the possibility of a poll boycott if the SIR process is not stymied. Will this embarrass the ruling coalition in Bihar into holding back, or will the rulers decide to brazen it out and hold a one-sided election with its principal opponents not participating? Is it going to be power at any cost?
The SIR of electoral rolls has found its guinea pig in Bihar, but it seems to be the intention of the government, which the EC has merely articulated as an implementing agency, to subject every state in the country to the dubious exercise.
The purpose seems to be to make it as hard as possible for the BJP’s opponents to win elections, including in the southern states where historically they have had the upper hand.
Since the change in law in December 2022 to give the government a majority in the panel that selects the members of the commission, by eliminating the Chief Justice of India from it, the poll body can no longer be deemed to be the neutral umpire it was designed to be.
Now, rules can be twisted and existing laws modified to suit those who administer from the Centre.
Last year, for example, when the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered the EC provide the video footage for the conduct of the Assembly election in a particular area in Haryana upon receiving specific complaints, the law was changed overnight to deny such documentation and prevent it from being considered for scrutiny by the court.
The change was effected through the aegis of the government on the EC’s recommendation.
The opponent parties now have no legal means to challenge the caprices of state power unleashed against India’s citizens when the corruption of electoral processes or outright voting fraud is suspected.
Also Read: Bihar SIR: As EC digs in heels and Tejashwi threatens poll boycott, all eyes on SC
Dubious SIR
The EC’s status as an independent constitutional authority to conduct free and fair elections in a democracy has been eroded and compromised. Since December, 2022, the EC has become, alas, just another ministry or department of the Government of India.
As such, the rolling out of the SIR in Bihar, has been rendered dubious and designed to favour the ruling party at the Centre and not even its ally in Bihar, the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) led by Nitish Kumar. It is not surprising that the JD(U) MP from Banka, Girdhari Yadav, has spoken out against it, as has a JD(U) MLA.
As a well-known journalist from Delhi, Ajit Anjum, has shown in his Youtube programmes on a work visit to his home state Bihar, the preparation of the voting roll through the SIR method by the EC for the upcoming assembly poll appears to be conceptualised to eliminate names from the electoral rolls in an unprecedented manner. Anjum has had a FIR registered against him.
This simultaneously serves as a signal and a threat to other journalists from demonstrating to the people that a partisan and fraudulent exercise is underway to deprive them of their primary right as a citizen from which flow other rights, i.e., the right to vote.
It bears mention that a special summary revision concluded by the EC in January this year has been rendered meaningless by the ludicrous SIR venture. Anjum’s video footages show this amply.
The poll body has also asserted in its recent pronouncements that as many as 22 lakh voters have died since January 2025 in Bihar. According to one calculation, based on simple averages, this would amount to roughly 150 voters dying in every assembly constituency in the last seven months, an unlikely occurrence that strains credulity.
There are other exclusions based on a voter not possessing one of the 11 documents, most notably the birth certificate.
In arguably India’s poorest state on most counts, with poor educational and health infrastructure, even children born a few months ago do not have a birth certificate. They have the Aadhaar card and the voter ID issued by the EC. But these are not being considered valid under SIR.
Also Read: Chaos rules Bihar SIR; Opposition poll boycott in the offing? Capital Beat
Many to lose voting rights?
If all exclusions are upheld, around 70 lakh voters or nine per cent of the total from the existing list would be prevented from casting their ballot in the state polls to be held later this year. But most notably, the upshot of the SIR is that the special summary revision of electoral rolls concluded by the EC only last January would be rendered meaningless.
Underlining the shotgun nature of the exercise, replete with power-derived whimsicality highlighted in popular commentaries, the enumeration for SIR was completed on July 25 in just a month. Normally, comprehensive revisions of this nature ought to take years.
Modi’s ally Chandrababu Naidu, who leads the Telugu Desam Party, has also commented critically on this matter. This only deepens suspicions. The situation is adrift, especially in regard to Bihar, replete with uncertainties, no matter what the Supreme Court decides on July 28 in disposing of petitions relating to SIR.
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