With the EC now asking for documentation proof not only of electors in the form of their birth or place of residence but also of their parents, fears of large scale exclusion are rife.
The Election Commission of India’s (EC) move to conduct a “special intensive revision (SIR)” of the electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar – requiring all existing voters, who were not on the rolls in 2003 to provide proof of their and their parents citizenship – has raised questions of practicality of the exercise just months ahead of the elections. It has also triggered concerns around mass disenfranchisement, exclusion and whether the poll body itself is being used to usher in the National Register for Citizens (NRC).
On Tuesday (June 24) the EC issued instructions for holding SIR in Bihar, stating that the last such exercise was conducted in the state in 2003. The commission, in announcing the house-to-house verification exercise, said that it had been necessitated due to various reasons, among which was the inclusion of “foreign illegal immigrants” in the electoral roll.
“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 said in its statement on June 24.
According to a 19-page letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Bihar with the subject – ‘Special Intensive Revision w.r.t. 01.07.2025 as the qualifying date’ – the form for electors shows that those born before July 1, 1987 will have to prove their date and/or place of birth. Those born between July 1, 1987-December 2, 2004 will have to prove their date of birth and the date/place of birth of one of their parents. Those born after December 2, 2004 will on the other hand have to prove their date/place of birth as well as that of both their parents.
Bihar has around 7.73 crore voters. Crucially, the exercise which has already started on Wednesday (June 25) – a day after it was announced – will be completed in two months.
Booth level officers (BLOs) will be carrying out the door-to-door checks till July 26. The draft electoral roll will be published on August 1. Voters will have until September 1 to make claims and objections and the final electoral roll is set to be published on September 30.
The commission’s move comes amid allegations by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that undocumented Bangladesh migrants have registered themselves as voters. The Congress too has levelled allegations of voter manipulation in Maharashtra assembly polls.
Presumption of citizenship for those registered before 2003
According to Paragraph 11 of the June 24 order, the EC said: “Since the last intensive revision in Bihar was undertaken in 2003, the EROs shall treat the electoral roll of 2003 with qualifying date of 01.01.2003 as probative evidence of eligibility, including presumption of citizenship unless they receive any other input otherwise.”
“Since they are saying that the last such revision was conducted in 2003. So people who have registered before 2003 are presumed to be citizens whereas those who have registered later are not presumed to be citizens so their status is up in the air,” said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, founding member of election watchdog body, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) to The Wire.
“All these elections they have voted in till 2024 Lok Sabha elections are they now of doubtful veracity? What has the commission been doing since 2004? For 21 years it has not done any intensive revisions. It is now saying that anybody whose vote was registered after 2003 is effectively de-registered. There is a process for deleting names in the electoral roll, with this order that process has been given a go-by. They have removed all those registered after 2003 without following the due process laid down by law, which as far as I see is illegal.”
In 2019, the Assam government published the NRC with the aim of separating Indian citizens from undocumented immigrants which required residents to prove that they or their ancestors had entered Assam before midnight on March 24, 1971. The final list showed however, that over 19 lakh people were left out.
“With NRC you had to prove your citizenship and now this is being done through the electoral rolls,” said Chhokar.
While the EC has published a list of documents that can be shown as proof, it has called the list ‘illustrative’ and not exhaustive. This raises questions about what other forms of proof will be accepted and whether the duration of the exercise is enough to get one’s documents in order.
“Citizenship provisions are there [in the order] and ECI is right in implementing it, but this law does not tell us about documents. [However,] the list of documents is illustrative, which is good. Presumption of citizenship of those whose names appear in 2003 rolls is also a good move,” said Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor of Chanakya National Law University, Patna.
“The time available for this exercise is too short and people have not got sufficient notice to get their documents.”
According to former chief election commissioner N. Gopalaswami however, the move should not be seen as another bid to bring in the NRC.
“I don’t see any merit in this argument. The elections are meant for citizens of India not for any foreigner. If that is being verified in a proper manner and through proper efforts and with reliable documents, why take an objection?”
‘More dangerous than NRC’
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee called the exercise “even more dangerous” than the NRC. Banerjee said that although the exercise began in Bihar, the real target was West Bengal which is due to go to the polls next year and where the BJP has accused the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of harbouring illegal immigrants.
“Voters from rural Bengal will be erased, and replaced with names from Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and other states,” she said on Thursday.
“If BJP thinks Indian democracy is a bonded labourer, they are mistaken. Students, villagers, migrant workers, common people who are not educated and also their parents, will be deprived. It is more than dangerous than even NRC,”
‘Devious and dubious idea’
In Bihar, opposition parties have opposed the SIR, with the Congress calling it a “devious and dubious idea in the disguise of a solution” that “carries a huge risk of wilful exclusion of voters using the power of the state machinery.”
The INDIA bloc in the state – which includes the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Lenninst) – addressed a joint press conference and said a delegation will visit the EC in the coming days.
“The Election Commission has announced a special revision of the voter list in Bihar. This means that the fresh voter list that was published in February March – that whole voter list of Bihar including 8 crore Biharis – has been kept aside and a new list will be prepared,” said former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav.
“The question that arises is why is this being done two months before the elections? Is it possible to prepare the voter list for 8 cr people within 25 days by going door to door? Not just this, the documents demanded are such that the poor may not even have them. Our delegation will approach the election commission regarding this. It is clear that Nitish Kumar (Bihar chief minister) and (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi are scared. They want the names of the poor to be removed from the voter list. They want to snatch the right to vote from the poor. In a democracy, the most important right given to the poor is to vote. Now Nitish ji and BJP want to snatch this right from the backbenchers of the society.”
It was Nitish Kumar himself who in 2019 had shunned any move to implement the NRC in Bihar. “Kaahe ka NRC?” (NRC what for?) Bilkul laagu nahin hoga (NRC, what for? Will not at all be implemented),” Nitish had said.
Neither Nitish nor his party Janata Dal (United) have yet responded to the EC’s ongoing exercise in Bihar.
Questions of exclusion, transparency, disenfranchisement
According to the EC’s June 24 press note, the exercise is being conducted to ensure “that the names of all eligible citizens are included in the Electoral Roll (ER) so as to enable them to exercise their franchise, no ineligible voter is included in the electoral rolls and also to introduce complete transparency in the process of addition or deletion of electors in the electoral rolls.”
Under the exercise, electoral registration officers (EROs) will print pre-filled enumeration forms for all existing electors and give them to the booth level officers (BLOs). These will be distributed to existing electors through door-to-door visits. This form will also be available on the Election Commission website, which can be downloaded by an elector whose name is in the electoral roll.
This raises questions about access to such forms by those who are not computer literate, rural poor as well as migrant workers. According to the 2011 census, Bihar along with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh have the highest “out migration”.
The Niti Aayog 2023 projections show about 88% Bihar population still resides in rural areas while its literacy rate at 61.8% is much lower than the national average of 73%.
“How will the migrant workers, who are not in Bihar get these forms and how many electors in rural Bihar will be computer-literate enough to download them, or will have the equipment to do so, or will have adequate supply of electricity to do so?” asked Chhokar.
With the EC now asking for documentation proof not only of electors in the form of their birth or place of residence but also of their parents, fears of large scale exclusion are rife.
“Whenever the Election Commission or the government gets into an exercise of demanding more documents to prove one is a citizen, in this case more than are even necessary, it leads to exclusions,” said transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj associated with Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information.
“There is a strong chance of large-scale exclusions which will essentially mean that people won’t be able to exercise their right to vote.”
“What is very clear is that the EC is demanding more and more information from voters and it is not even very clear why this kind of information is important. They are enrolled but now they are asking for other proof. How is this information necessary? There should be an explanation why more information is required. On the other hand, we are seeing that when it comes to giving voters information they are not forthcoming – whether it is with regard to preserving CCTV footage, or through the central government itself amending Rule 93(2)(a) of the 1961 Conduct of Election Rules by which not all election-related documents would be available for inspection by the public,” she added.
Chhokar also pointed to the EC’s directions for the door to door verification exercise in which it states that all documents will be uploaded online “to ensure complete transparency” but adds that “these documents shall be accessible to authorised election officials only.”“How is there transparency then in this regard?” he asked.
‘Misplaced apprehensions’
On the other hand, former chief election commissioner Gopalaswami said that the EC’s move to start an SIR is welcome as it has not been done in the country in several years and door-to-door verification ensures that the electoral rolls are updated thoroughly.
“The exercise requires that the officials who go (door-to-door) carrying older electoral rolls to conduct the verification exercise. If somebody in the house is not there, they will verify and incorporate – they will not leave them out. Because the EC normally makes doubly and triply sure before making any deletions,” he said.
“As far as new enrolments are concerned, persons who are born after 2004 may have their parents around so it is easy [for them ] to show [proof]. If there are people who don’t have documents, they have other ways to verify. This apprehension of exclusion is misplaced. In city areas on the other hand, even your neighbour may not know you. Electoral rolls need to be updated especially in the cities where a lot of inter-city and intra-city migration takes place.
“It is not that without door-to-door verification, electoral rolls will not be in proper order. But there may be more inclusions since people who leave and are not there may also not be excluded.”