Bihar Voter List Controversy: Supreme Court Examines Claims of 47 Lakh Adults Disenfranchised in Special Intensive Revision

New Delhi:

Election analyst and activist Yogendra Yadav informed the Supreme Court today that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists in Bihar has eliminated 47 lakh adults and 16 lakh women in one action. During a critical hearing of petitions challenging SIR, Yadav provided extensive details of "irregularities" after the court requested evidence supporting claims that millions of people have been disenfranchised.

The Election Commission has contested these allegations, stating that the petitioners were presenting "false claims in affidavits."

In response to the Commission's assertion that not a single individual has challenged their name's "exclusion" from the voter list, suggesting there were no unjustified exclusions, the Supreme Court has directed the State Legal Services Chairperson to deploy para-legal volunteers and government lawyers to assist citizens in filing appeals.

During the previous hearing on Tuesday, petitioners alleged that disenfranchised individuals couldn't appeal because the poll commission failed to send individual notifications. The bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi had requested that petitioners provide evidence supporting their claims.

In today's hearing, Yogendra Yadav declared to the court, "Gains of 10 years in gender ratio were wiped out in Bihar SIR."

Yadav explained, "Previously, the gap in the number of women in electoral rolls was 20 lakh. That decreased to 7 lakh this January. SIR has increased it to 16 lakh again. I hope this pattern doesn't spread across the country."

He acknowledged that voter lists need improvement since existing measures weren't entirely successful. "The dispute isn't about the Election Commission's rights but concerns the nature of suggested revisions. SIR has weaponized what should be a normal, benign process," he stated.

According to Yadav, the Commission has deployed "three toxic weapons" in this process: systemic exclusion, structural exclusion, and potential targeted exclusion.

He contended that Bihar's Special Intensive Revision has resulted in the largest reduction of voters at 47 lakh. "There was already a deficit of 27 lakh people when SIR began. In one action, this gap has expanded to 81 lakh. They should identify any election in history with an 81 lakh gap between adult population and registered voters," he challenged.

Although the official estimate placed Bihar's adult population at 8.22 crore in September—all of whom should have been on electoral rolls—the final voter rolls contain only 7.42 crore names. The missing 80 lakh individuals represent 10 percent of Bihar's total adult population who have been disenfranchised through systemic exclusion, according to Yadav.

He displayed extracts from the final list showing names written in Tamil and Kannada scripts. "Some entries have blank fields for spouse's names and addresses," he pointed out.

Previously, Yogendra Yadav had expressed concern about SIR's impact on marginalized groups including Dalits and migrant workers. He had also suggested indications of serious discrepancies, particularly affecting women and Muslims.

Representing the Election Commission, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi insisted that petitioners were making false claims in their affidavits. "The initial argument claimed numerous people appeared in draft rolls but their names disappeared without notice and without providing order copies. We've investigated this... Their affidavit is false... This particular individual wasn't in the draft list because they never submitted the required enumeration form," he stated.