The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar just weeks before the likely notification of assembly elections. Such revisions, when conducted this close to polling, are extraordinary and must meet a high bar of justification. Yet no explanation, let alone evidence, has been offered for why this exercise is necessary now. Instead, the justification has taken a familiar and troubling shape: vague and unsubstantiated claims about “illegal voters” and “cross-border infiltration”.
If this is not a damning indictment of the ministry of home affairs’ failure in protecting our borders, then it is definitely dog-whistling to create a pretext for the possibility of large-scale manipulation. The pattern is unmistakable and, to the opposition parties, the objective seems transparent: to manipulate voter rolls in a manner that systematically excludes minorities and the poor.
This is not the first time such tactics have been deployed. In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and subsequent state elections in Maharashtra, lakhs of names were added to the electoral rolls in a short period. Opposition parties have raised valid concerns about the sudden spike and the unusually high late-evening turnout surges. The ECI has refused to release digital, machine-readable electoral rolls or polling-day CCTV footage.
Also, ahead of the elections, right-wing commentators and academics belted out dubious ‘studies’ raising unfounded alarms about “illegal voters”. The exercise was repeated in Delhi right before the 2025 assembly elections. No other official data supported these claims.
The fear-mongering in the name of “illegal migrants” or “bogus voters” used to be an ideological fringe position—it has become a tool of institutionalised disenfranchisement. This framing is used to justify aggressive and opaque revisions of electoral rolls that disproportionately target Muslim, Dalit and poor migrant communities. Now the ECI is echoing this language without any evidence and without accountability.
There is a conspicuous absence of data and a deliberate invocation of public anxiety around border security and demographic change. The shift from dog-whistle politics to executive action—particularly by a constitutional body like the ECI—is a dangerous point.
The ECI must conduct a thorough and honest investigation into these allegations if India’s reputation as a democracy is to survive. The Constitution of India, under Article 324, entrusts the ECI with the conduct of free and fair elections. This does not just mean ballot secrecy or smooth polling logistics, it means ECI is constitutionally bound to protect the integrity of the electorate. This integrity is compromised when entire communities are asked to prove their right to vote without a shred of evidence against them.
These allegations are not speculation of losers. Research by Sabyasachi Das has demonstrated that in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidates won a disproportionate number of tightly contested seats, especially in BJP-ruled states. His analysis points to patterns consistent with the possibility of ‘manipulated’ rolls and irregularities in voter turnout data, not campaign strength. Economist Abusaleh Shariff, who was a member of the Sachar Committee, conducted voter roll audits in Karnataka that revealed nearly 20 percent of adult Muslims were missing from the electoral list, while 30-35 percent of Muslim households had only one listed voter. These patterns are not random— they are engineered exclusions.
Reports suggest that verification for the SIR will require individual voters in Bihar to furnish documentation proving their eligibility and citizenship. These requirements bear an uncanny resemblance to the discredited National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam, where millions of Indians were forced to dig up decades-old documents to prove citizenship, often arbitrarily.
According to government data, over 70 lakh citizens of Bihar work outside the state. Introducing these hurdles now will not only suppress turnout and bar legitimate voters from participating, but the requirement to establish citizenship by poor Bihar residents and migrants living in other states is designed to produce largescale chaos, deliberate confusion and fear.
The Representation of the People Act, 1950 lays out clear procedures for the inclusion and deletion of names from the electoral roll. It does not authorise open-ended ‘special’ revisions based on speculative narratives. Any extraordinary revision must be justified by credible demographic evidence, transparent methodology, and inclusive consultation with all political parties. None of these conditions have been met in Bihar.
It is not just about individuals losing their right to vote or padding up a party’s votes by fictitious voters. It is a structural move to tilt the electoral field. If even 2-3 percent of votes are strategically suppressed or added in a tightly contested state, it can alter outcomes in dozens of seats.
The legitimacy of an election begins before the first vote is cast. The credibility of polling is at risk if people perceive they are being prevented from voting. With the state appearing to use bureaucratic tools to reshape the voter base, people—especially the poor and the powerless—will have to contend with a situation wherein they themselves do not count as voters. Democracy is not just backsliding, but dying little by little.
The opposition demands an immediate and complete halt to the special revision process in Bihar until the ECI publishes a full justification of the basis and methodology of the exercise. Secondly, all documentation requirements should be reviewed for legality and consistency with the RPA, 1950. We also call for independent audits in constituencies where large-scale deletions or additions have occurred in the past five years. Furthermore, we demand the release of machine-readable voter rolls, as well as demographic breakdowns of additions and deletions.
If the SIR is allowed in Bihar without this, it will be taken as a clear case of voter base manipulation. It will be disenfranchisement masquerading as vigilance. The ECI must be held accountable—not just by the courts, but by the public, civil society, and every political party that believes in constitutional democracy. We will not allow this abuse of power to proceed unchallenged.
The electorate will bear witness that the opposition parties had to not only counter the programme and promises of the ruling coalition, but struggle to foil attempts to disallow people from voting by the very institutions that had the job of protecting their franchise.
Manoj Kumar Jha | Member of Rajya Sabha and national spokesperson, RJD
(Views are personal)
