The Election Commission’s decision to conduct a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar has become a political hot potato, which the Opposition fears will scald it the most.
The leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, on Sunday sounded a note of caution at a rally dominated by Muslims. “Beware of the move to strike out your name from the voter list. You will lose your right to citizenship and government subsidy,” the RJD leader said at the gathering against the Waqf Amendment Act.
Tejashwi’s apprehension can be traced back to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when the BJP had pitted Rajeev Pratap Rudy against Lalu Prasad’s daughter Rohini Acharya in the Saran constituency.
Rudy, who was seeking a fifth term in the Lok Sabha, was rattled — not by his debutant adversary but the “over 80,000 MY (Muslim and Yadav) votes” that he claimed had been added to the electoral rolls since 2019.
“You have to ensure more votes in your respective polling booths than in the 2019 polls because over 80,000 MY votes, which form the RJD’s core vote bank, have been added. We missed out when the electoral rolls were being revised,” he had told BJP workers.
Rudy won the Saran seat by a slender margin of 13,661 votes, but several BJP and JDU candidates were alarmed by the “abnormal rise” in MY voters, particularly Muslims.
Muslims constitute 19 per cent of the population in Bihar, according to the latest census conducted by the state government.
Currently, the ruling NDA enjoys the support of a majority of non-MY votes. In the 2020 Assembly elections, it had faced a tough fight from the Mahagathbandhan when Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party broke away from the NDA, slicing off 5.5 per cent of its votes. This time, Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party is hoping to shake things up.
In the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region bordering Nepal, Bengal and Bangladesh, the NDA lost three of the four seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections despite a highly polarising campaign, fuelling claims of increased infiltration. BJP leaders have time and again alleged that illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were altering the demography of the region. Several BJP leaders feel that the SIR would address the issue.
Senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui claimed the SIR was aimed at axing Mahagathbandhan votes.
“Doesn’t the EC have the right to revise the electoral roll? Those who are not voters are not entitled to vote,” BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel countered.
The SIR is being carried out in the state after 22 years. The EC has clarified that those whose names are not on the 2003 rolls would need to provide documentation. The 2003 rolls had 4.96 crore names while the current rolls have 7.9 crore.
The EC has cited weeding out ineligible voters and “demographic integrity” of some constituencies where the number of migrants has become more than the victory margins as key reasons behind holding this exercise. However, the Opposition fears that the complex drive conducted so close to the polls would lead to the elimination of several genuine voters.
Sudhir Rakesh, former chief electoral officer of Bihar, said the EC’s decision to revise the rolls was not unconstitutional. “It’s a normal process that should have happened every five years. The fact that it’s happening after such a long gap has given rise to misgivings,” Rakesh told this correspondent.
Bihar is likely to go to polls in October. Booth-level officers will conduct door-to-door checks with pre-filled enumeration forms that the voters need to sign and submit by July 25 along with the required documents. The draft electoral roll will be published on August 1. Voters will have a month to make claims and objections before the final roll is published.
The challenging exercise has been further compounded by the poll panel’s list of 11 acceptable documents, which includes birth and caste certificates.
The Opposition claims that only 2.5 per cent of the population have birth certificates and only 20 per cent possess caste certificates. They have also questioned the timing of the exercise, given that the monsoon season is underway and around 73 per cent of the state is either experiencing floods or is facing the risk.
In private, BJP leaders admit that they are looking forward to making a deep dent in the vote bank of their rivals following the SIR.
“Bihar is just a trailer. It will happen in other states as well,” a senior BJP leader said.
“Bengal goes to polls in 2026, and that is why Mamata Banerjee is worried,” he added.