Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday alleged his name was missing from Bihar’s draft electoral rolls, drawing an immediate fact-check and denial from the poll panel, with sources indicating the possibility of legal action against the politician.

Tejashwi later fired a long list of questions and demands to the Election Commission (EC), questioning the transparency of the draft rolls it had published on Friday following a month-long special intensive revision (SIR).

“My name is not there in the electoral rolls. How will I contest the elections?” the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly had earlier said at a media conference.

He had demonstrated to the reporters that searches on the poll panel website using his purported voter ID number were drawing a blank.

The denial, issued by the Patna district administration on behalf of the poll panel, was prompt.

“In this regard, an investigation was conducted by the district administration, Patna. It has been clarified that the name of the Honourable Leader of Opposition is registered in the draft voter list,” the district administration said in a post on X.

“Currently, his name is listed at polling station number 204… with serial number 416.”

Attached with the post was an image of a portion of the voter list that contained Tejashwi’s name and picture.

Poll panel sources said the voter ID number Tejashwi had quoted before the media to claim his name was missing from the draft rolls was “non-existing”.

They added that “inquiries are on” to ascertain whether Tejashwi had used a “forged document”.

They said Tejashwi had in his nomination papers of 2020 used Electors Photo Identity Card No. RAB0456228 — the one the poll panel had used to fact-check and deny his claim.

“The other EPIC number — RAB2916120 (which Tejashwi had quoted before the media) has been found to be non-existing,” a commission source said.

“It is highly likely that the second EPIC was never made through an official channel. Further inquiries are on to understand that reality of the second EPIC number, whether that is a forged document.”

After the poll panel’s rebuttal of his claim, Tejashwi came up with a series of posts on X, accusing the commission of reneging on its alleged promise of providing the details of each name removed from the rolls following the SIR, and the reasons for the deletion.

He said the SIR had been “deliberately rigged”.

Poll panel sources denied the “baseless allegations”. They said no booth-level agent (BLA) of any political party — not even the RJD — had submitted a single complaint to the booth-level officers since the publication of the draft rolls.

“From August 1 (3pm) till 2 August (3pm), all political parties put together, have filed ‘Zero’ Claims and Objections for the addition of the names of eligible electors and deletion of the names of ineligible electors,” a media release from the commission said.

The draft electoral rolls contain 7.24 crore names, down from the 7.89 crore that Bihar’s voter list contained before the SIR. The poll panel says the deletions relate to dead voters, those registered at multiple polling stations, and those who have shifted out of Bihar or could not be traced.

Opposition parties and some civil society organisations have expressed fear that the document-driven exercise, which seeks citizenship proof from voters, has disenfranchised millions of the poor, marginalised and unlettered. Petitions have been moved asking the Supreme Court to strike down the “unconstitutional” SIR.

Tejashwi alleged that the poll panel had ignored suggestions, complaints and demands from the Opposition in connection with the SIR. He posted a list of demands.

“The EC should immediately provide a booth-wise list, along with reasons, of all those voters whose names are not included in the draft voter list,” he said.

“A categorised list of deceased, shifted, repeated, and untraceable voters should be made public, Assembly-wise and booth-wise.”

Tejashwi said that until “transparency is restored”, the last date for filing objections should be extended. He claimed that only a week had been given to file objections.

The poll panel denied this, too, and said the time for filing objections was a “full one month, i.e. from Aug 1 to Sept 1”. Tejashwi said: “If names are being removed and the reasons behind it are being concealed, then this is a serious democratic crisis and a direct attack on the people’s voting rights.”

Referring to his posts, commission sources said that a booth-wise draft voter list had already been shared with party agents. They, however, did not respond to Tejashwi’s demand for providing the reasons for each deletion.