The Election Commission’s sudden decision to conduct a special revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls has raised troubling questions about the timing and intent. With Assembly elections looming on the horizon, this unexpected exercise has sparked a political firestorm that now reaches the hallowed chambers of the Supreme Court. On July 10, the apex court will hear petitions challenging what many see as an attempt to manipulate democratic processes in a politically volatile state. The revision, announced with minimal notice and justified through bureaucratic language about “electoral integrity,” follows a pattern we’ve witnessed across states where opposition forces have shown strength. Democracy thrives on predictability of process and transparency of intent—both conspicuously absent in this case. When electoral rules are abruptly altered, we must question whether we’re witnessing prudent administration or calculated interference. The answers may determine not just Bihar’s political future, but the health of our electoral system.
The EC’s defence of this “special intensive revision” would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous. They claim this exercise aims to eliminate duplicate and bogus voters—particularly those registered at both permanent and current addresses. How thoughtful! With 7.9 million registered voters in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states with staggering illiteracy rates, the EC has decided now is the perfect time to demand citizens prove they exist.
But here’s where the dark comedy turns sinister. The EC, in its infinite wisdom, has excluded the Aadhaar card, ration card, and MGNREGA cards as valid proof of identity. Let that sink in. These government-issued documents—which citizens were told were essential, which they stood in endless lines to obtain, which consumed millions of taxpayer rupees to implement, which serve as lifelines for the poorest segments of society—are suddenly deemed insufficient. The very identification cards that Bihar’s impoverished masses clutch like talismans when accessing public services, the documents they safeguard in plastic sleeves and metal boxes, the cards that government officials previously insisted were indispensable proof of citizenship and existence, have been casually dismissed with a bureaucratic wave of the hand. For many rural Biharis, these now-rejected cards represent their only tangible connection to the state apparatus, obtained after days of wages lost waiting in government offices and navigating labyrinthine application processes.
Instead, the EC’s acceptable documents read like a bureaucrat’s fever dream: government pension orders, pre-1987 documents from any government department, birth certificates, passports, matriculation certificates, permanent residence certificates, caste certificates, NRC documents, family registers, and land allotment papers. This laundry list of arcane paperwork reveals a profound disconnection from the lived reality of Bihar’s citizens. Many of these documents require literacy, permanent addresses, and generational record-keeping that privilege the urban elite while systematically excluding the rural poor.
The pension orders and pre-1987 government documents might as well be ancient Sanskrit tablets for all their accessibility to the average Bihari. Birth certificates—in a state where home births remain common and registration systems spotty at best—exist primarily in theory. Passports? An unaffordable luxury for families struggling to put dal on the table. Matriculation certificates presume education in a region where children often leave school to work the fields. The permanent residence certificates mock the seasonal migrants who follow harvest cycles, while caste certificates and NRC documents entangle citizens in bureaucratic webs.
Each item on this preposterous list represents another trap door through which the marginalised might fall out of democratic participation. The EC’s requirements betray not merely incompetence but something far more troubling—a fundamental contempt for the poor. In rural Bihar, where homelessness hovers around 65.58 per cent, the EC expects citizens to produce land allotment certificates. Where illiteracy is rampant, they demand school certificates. Where poverty forces migration, they require permanent residence proof. The irony thickens when one realises most of these “acceptable” documents are issued based on the now-rejected Aadhaar card. So Aadhaar is valid enough to generate other documents but not valid itself? Such circular logic would make even Kafka blush. And the timeline—less than one month for potentially millions of voters to gather these obscure documents. Even if by some miracle citizens manage this bureaucratic treasure hunt, does the EC possess the manpower to verify them all? But perhaps verification isn’t the point.
This exercise will inevitably enrich corrupt officials as desperate citizens pay bribes to obtain certificates. The government’s bloated bureaucracy, already feasting on taxpayer money, will grow fatter while the poorest citizens—those most in need of representation—will be systematically excluded. If one government department doesn’t trust the certificates issued by another, why issue such certificates in the first place? Why waste billions in taxpayer money creating identification systems only to invalidate them?
The Supreme Court must recognise this charade for what it is—a calculated attempt to disenfranchise voters under the guise of electoral integrity. If the EC genuinely believes Aadhaar cards are flawed, then it’s the EC’s responsibility to fix the system, not punish citizens for government failures. Democracy isn’t a privilege for those with the right paperwork—it’s the bedrock of our nation. When bureaucrats with secure government positions can casually erase citizens’ voting rights with arbitrary rules, we’re no longer witnessing electoral management but democratic demolition.