Voters must prove their citizenship by providing various documents – but in rural Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, a lack of record-keeping could see millions taken off the electoral roll.

India’s top election body is facing mounting criticism over its sweeping revision of voter registration ahead of an important state election in Bihar, with activists and opposition groups raising alarms over the potential for large-scale disenfranchisement in one of the country’s poorest states.

The drive to verify the identity of all of the state’s 78 million voters, launched on 24 June ahead of elections later this year, has strict documentation requirements, triggering concerns it would lead to exclusion of vulnerable groups, especially those unable to produce the extensive paperwork required to prove their citizenship.

The Election Commission of India has said that some 49.6 million voters whose names were included in a similar exercise in 2003 need not submit any further documents. This leaves almost 30 million voters potentially vulnerable.

While the Election Commission insists the process, known as a Special Intensive Revision (SIR), is a routine update to ensure the accuracy of electoral rolls, opposition leaders, civil society groups and petitioners in the Supreme Court warn it echoes the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, which left nearly two million people at risk of statelessness.

Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar defended the move, stating that the Commission had engaged extensively with political parties.

“The ECI has invited all recognised political parties for interaction. No one was satisfied with the current status of electoral rolls for one reason or the other,” he said, noting that more than 5,000 meetings have been held over the past four months with 28,000 party representatives.

The electoral rolls are being revised for the first time since 2003 in Bihar. Under the new process, an estimated 29.3 million voters whose names are not listed in the 2003 rolls must now submit at least one of 11 specified documents to establish their eligibility. The deadline to submit these documents is 25 July.

Under the new process, those not listed in the 2003 rolls must now submit at least one of 11 specified documents to establish their eligibility. The deadline to submit these documents is 25 July. The draft rolls will be published on 1 August, and a further period from 1 August to 1 September will allow electors to raise claims or objections before the final list of voters is released on 30 September.

In a statement to The Independent, Congress spokesperson Saral Patel calls for greater transparency from the poll body, and insisted that while his party was not opposed to voter roll revision in principle, the current process risks repeating the “tragic precedent” of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) – an exercise that left nearly two million people excluded from citizenship lists and mired in legal limbo in 2019.

“The Congress party’s stand and demand is very simple: we insist that every eligible voter must be protected,” Patel says.

“The INDIA bloc’s meeting with the ECI was based on good faith, not on an objection to due process – we are not against revision per se, but it must be done with great care, and certainly not on the eve of a general election,” he says, referring to an opposition alliance comprising several parties.

Social activist Harsh Mander drew a sharp parallel with the deeply divisive NRC in Assam, warning that the exercise risks repeating a painful chapter in Indian history.

Speaking to The Independent, Mander, a former civil servant and noted human rights advocate, says the Bihar voter roll overhaul shares the same underlying flaw as the NRC – shifting the burden of proof onto ordinary citizens in a country with patchy documentation systems and deep socio-economic inequalities.

“The whole idea of NRC was one that shifts the burden of proof to ordinary citizens,” he says. “In India, relying on these documents would be a challenge, more so because in a country like ours, we didn’t have the system of record keeping.”

But this demand for historical documentation, Mander says, was unrealistic in a country where official record-keeping has long been inconsistent and inaccessible to the poor.

“We have people who don’t go to school or didn’t have a registered marriage. I didn’t have a registered marriage,” he added. “So in a country that has not relied on these documents, [requiring them] is a huge challenge.”

Opposition leaders, including Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Member of Parliament Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, activist Yogendra Yadav and civil society organisations like the Association for Democratic Reforms and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, have moved the Supreme Court to challenge the revision.

They argue the SIR could result in the deletion of lakhs of voter names and would particularly harm women and socio-economically disadvantaged groups. The court has agreed to hear the matter on Thursday but has not stayed the exercise.

The EC has said the SIR is necessary due to a range of issues: increased migration, urbanisation, young voters coming of age, unreported deaths, and the inclusion of ineligible names, including suspected illegal immigrants.

Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are conducting door-to-door verification and collecting documentation. The commission maintains that every effort is being made to ensure the exercise does not inconvenience the elderly, the disabled, or economically disadvantaged voters.

Nonetheless, doubts persist about how easily voters – particularly from marginalised backgrounds – can furnish the required paperwork.

Bihar has historically had low levels of official documentation. The 11 documents deemed acceptable include passports, matriculation certificates, birth certificates, government-issued identity cards, and land allotment documents. But data reveals these are beyond the reach of many in the state.

For instance, only around 1.57 per cent of Bihar’s population was employed in government jobs as per the 2022 Bihar Caste Survey – one of the criteria under the EC’s guidelines. Similarly, only two per cent of residents held valid passports as of 2023, and just 14.71 per cent had passed their Class 10 school exams, limiting access to matriculation certificates, reported the Indian Express.

Birth registration has historically been poor in Bihar.

In 2007, only 713,000 births were registered in a state that saw an estimated 2.8 million births that year, reported the outlet.

Certificates like permanent residence documents and caste certificates often require applicants to first furnish other documents, such as Aadhaar (digital identification system) cards and voter IDs, which many lack. Land-related documents are also scarce, with more than 65 per cent of rural households reported to own no land, according to the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011.

Patel accuses the EC of failing to account for the socio-economic realities on the ground.

“We call on the Election Commission to be transparent: clarify timelines, ease document requirements, and robustly assist the poor, migrants, and marginalised so that no one is unjustly removed from the voter rolls,” he says.

“The right to vote is not a privilege handed out with a certificate – it is a constitutional guarantee.”

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who are typically sub-divisional magistrates, are responsible for evaluating the applications and verifying documents. As per the Representation of the People Act, 1950, names can only be deleted or added after proper scrutiny.

The commission’s 24 June directive mandates that no name be struck off without inquiry and providing the concerned voter with an opportunity to respond.

However, a particular section of the EC’s instructions has drawn concern. It allows officials to refer “cases of suspected foreign nationals” to the relevant authority under the Citizenship Act, raising fears of further targeting of minorities.

Tejashwi Yadav, leader of the opposition in the Bihar Legislative Assembly, called the revision exercise a “conspiracy”.

“The last time the routine process of revision of voter list was done was in 2003... it took about two years to complete,” he said.

“Now elections are to be held in November. Two months are left before the notification process begins. That means the Election Commission has to make a new list... of [80 million] people... in just 25 days. And that too when 73 per cent of the state is affected by floods!”

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which is part of the ruling coalition in Bihar, defended the process. State minister Nitin Nabin accused the Congress of trying to obstruct the removal of bogus names.

“If genuine voters are being verified and fake voters are being removed, is Congress sitting here to commit fraud?” he asked. “Are you trying to gain power through fake votes?”

Meanwhile, sources in the EC said similar exercises are being planned for West Bengal and New Delhi starting August, reported the New Indian Express.

The last verification of voter rolls in West Bengal and Delhi took place in 2002 and 2008 respectively. In Delhi, individuals added to the electoral rolls after 16 March 2008 will be asked to prove their citizenship to remain on the list.