Indian politician Rahul Gandhi among those arrested during electoral demonstrations
In the northern state of Bihar, the Election Commission is carrying out a large-scale revision of the electoral roll, known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). This process aims to update the rolls and remove duplicates and ineligible entries. However, concerns have been raised about the potential disenfranchisement of marginalized communities, particularly Muslims and migrants.
Critics suggest that this could be hard to come by for many in Bihar, one of the poorest parts of India with low literacy rates. Around 35 lakh voters were excluded from Bihar's draft electoral rolls, with many belonging to marginalized groups. Many were marked "absent" by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during door-to-door enumeration, often because they were living outside their registered addresses due to work or migration.
Initially, the Election Commission required multiple documents as proof for inclusion, which activists and political parties argued was stringent and could disproportionately exclude vulnerable voters lacking easy access to such documents. After legal challenges, the Supreme Court instructed the Election Commission to accept Aadhaar or any one of 11 specified documents as valid proof of identity, easing the burden on voters to prove their eligibility.
Despite procedural improvements, confusion and lack of awareness persist among affected voters. Some citizens whose names were deleted are unaware or unclear about the claims process, increasing the risk that they may miss the deadline and thus be disenfranchised.
The opposition, led by Rahul Gandhi, fears that the process could render millions of citizens unable to vote in Bihar, particularly the Muslim minority which constitutes around 17.7% of the population according to the 2023 census. The opposition claims that electoral rolls in key states have been altered to benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP, on the other hand, argues that the revision is necessary to update new voters and delete the names of those who may have died or moved to other states. They accuse the opposition of trying to create a "state of anarchy" by sowing seeds of doubt about the electoral process.
The Election Commission states that the changes are needed to avoid the "inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants" in Bihar. However, this assertion has sparked concerns among opposition lawmakers, who fear that the Muslim minority could be particularly disenfranchised ahead of state elections later this year.
Recently, Rahul Gandhi was temporarily detained by police in New Delhi following a protest against perceived electoral malpractice. Around 300 opposition parliamentarians marched towards the Election Commission headquarters in New Delhi, demanding transparency and fairness in the electoral process.
The SIR process in Bihar mirrors a similar exercise in the northeastern state of Assam in 2019, where nearly two million people, many of them Muslims, were at risk of statelessness. The concerns and controversies surrounding these electoral roll revisions underscore the importance of fair and transparent electoral processes in democratic societies.
- War-and-conflicts and politics collide as critics claim that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar's electoral process could disproportionately disenfranchise Muslim and migrant communities, stoking fears of exclusion that resonate with the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam.
- In the realm of policy-and-legislation, the Election Commission's implementation of the SIR has been met with resistance, as legal challenges push for the removal of stringent document requirements to facilitate inclusion of vulnerable voters, whose access to necessary documents may be limited due to their marginalized status.
- General-news outlets and crime-and-justice correspondents highlight the ongoing battle between political factions in relation to the SIR in Bihar, with opposition parties alleging electoral malpractice designed to disadvantage marginalized communities, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) counters by arguing for the revision's necessity to maintain the integrity of the electoral process.
