The Bihar Election 2025: The Election Commission of India’s (EC) move to conduct a “special seriously modification (SIR)” of the constituent rolls in poll-bound Bihar—requiring all existing voters who were not on the rolls in 2003 to give verification of their and their guardians’ citizenship—has raised questions of common sense of the workoutmonths ahead of the races.
It has, moreover, activated concerns around mass disappointment, avoidance, and whether the survey body itself is being utilized to usher in the National Register of Citizens (NRC). On Tuesday (June 24) the EC issued information for holding SIR in Bihar, expressing that the final such workoutwas conducted in the state in 2003.
The commission, in declaring the house-to-house confirmation work out, said that it had been required due to different reasons, among which was the incorporation of “foreign unlawful immigrants” in the constituent roll.
Various reasons, such as fast urbanization, visit movement, youthful citizens getting to be qualified to vote, non-reporting of passings, and consideration of the names of remote unlawful workers, have required the conduct of a serious amendment so as to guarantee judgment and planning of error-free discretionary rolls,” the EC said in its articulation on June 24.
Importance of Voting in Bihar Election 2025
According to a 19-page letter to the Chief Discretionary Officer (CEO) of Bihar with the subject ‘Special Seriously Modification w.r.t. 01.07.2025 as the qualifying date,’ the frame for voters appears to be that those born some time recently, July 1, 1987, will have to demonstrate their date and/or place of birth.
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Those born between July 1, 1987, and December 2, 2004, will have to demonstrate their date of birth and the date/place of birth of one of their guardians. Those born after December 2 2004 will, on the other hand have to demonstrate their date/place of birth as well as that of both their parents.
Bihar has around 7.73 crore voters. Significantly, the workout, which has as of now begun on Wednesday (June 25)—a day after it was reported—will be completed in two months. What documents to carry for voting in Bihar 2025?
Booth-level officers (BLOs) will be carrying out the door-to-door checks till July 26. The draft appointive roll will be distributed on Eminent 1. Voters will have until September 1 to make claims and protests, and the last appointive roll is set to be distributed on September 30.
The commission’s move comes in the midst of affirmations by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that undocumented Bangladeshi transients have enlisted themselves as voters. The Congress as well has leveled charges of voter control in Maharashtra gathering polls.
Presumption of Citizenship for Those Enlisted Some Time Recently 2025
According to Passage 11 of the June 24 arrangement, the EC said, “Since the final serious modification in Bihar was attempted in 2003, the EROs should treat the constituent roll of 2003 with the qualifying date of 01.01.2003 as probative proof of qualification, counting assumption of citizenship unless they get any other input otherwise.
Since they are saying that the final such amendment was conducted in 2003. So individuals who have enlisted some time recently, 2003, are assumed to be citizens, though those who have enrolled afterward are not assumed to be citizens, so their status is up in the air,” said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, establishing part of the race guard dog body, Affiliation for Law-based Changes (ADR), to The Wire.
All these decisions they have voted in till the 2024 Lok Sabha races—are they presently of dicey veracity? What has the commission been doing since 2004? For a long time it has not done any serious modifications.
It is presently saying that anyone whose vote was enlisted after 2003 is successfully de-registered. There is a handle for erasing names in the constituent roll; with this arrangement, that handle has been given a go-by. They have expelled all those enrolled after 2003 without taking after the due process laid down by law, which, as far as I can see, is illegal.
In 2019, the Assam government distributed the NRC with the point of isolating Indian citizens from undocumented migrants, which required inhabitants to demonstrate that they or their predecessors had entered Assam some time recently before midnight on March 24, 1971. The last list appeared, in any case, that over 19 lakh individuals were cleared out.
Polling Booth Rules in Bihar 2025 Elections
With NRC you had to demonstrate your citizenship, and presently this is being done through the constituent rolls,” said Chhokar. While the EC has distributed a list of reports that can appear as confirmation, it has called the list ‘illustrative’ and not thorough. This raises questions around what other shapes of confirmation will be acknowledged and whether the term of the workoutis sufficient to get one’s archives in order.
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Citizenship arrangements are there [in the arrangement], and ECI is right in executing it, but this law does not tell us approximately records. [In any case,] the list of records is illustrative, which is great. Assumption of citizenship of those whose names show up in 2003 rolls is, moreover, a great move said Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor of Chanakya National Law College, Patna.
The time accessible for this workoutis as well brief, and individuals have not taken adequate note to get their documents. According to previous chief race commissioner N. Gopalaswami, in any case, the move ought to not be seen as another offer to bring in the NRC.
I don’t see any justification for this contention. The decisions are implied for citizens of India, not for any outsider. If that is being confirmed in a legitimate way and through legitimate endeavors and with solid archives, why take an objection?
More Unsafe Than NRC
West Bengal chief serve Mamata Banerjee called the work out even more dangerous than the NRC. Banerjee said that in spite of the fact that the work out started in Bihar, the genuine target was West Bengal which is due to go to the surveys following year and where the BJP has blamed the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of harboring unlawful immigrants.
Voters from rustic Bengal will be eradicated, and supplanted with names from Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and other states,” she said on Thursday. If BJP considers Indian majority rule government is a fortified worker, they are mixed up. Understudies, villagers, vagrant laborers, common individuals who are not taught and moreover their guardians, will be denied. It is more than perilous than indeed NRC.
Devious and Questionable Idea
In Bihar, resistance parties have contradicted the SIR, with the Congress calling it a “devious and questionable thought in the camouflage of a solution” that “carries a colossal hazard of willful avoidance of voters utilizing the control of the state machinery.
The INDIA alliance in the state—which incorporates the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)—tended to a joint press conference and said a delegation will visit the EC in the coming days.
The Race Commission has declared an uncommon amendment of the voter list in Bihar. This implies that the new voter list that was distributed in February Walk—that entire voter list of Bihar counting 8 crore Biharis—has been kept aside and a modern list will be prepared,” said previous Bihar delegate chief Tejashwi Yadav.
The address that emerges is, why is this being done two months after some recentraces? Is it conceivable to get ready the voter list for 8 crore individuals inside 25 days by going entryway to entryway? This is not fair; the records requested are such that the destitute may not indeed have them. Our assignment will approach the race commission with respect to this.
It is clear that Nitish Kumar (Bihar chief) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are frightened. They need the names of the destitute to be expelled from the voter list. They need to grab the right to vote from the destitute. In a vote-based system, the most vital right given to the destitute is to vote. Presently Nitish ji and the BJP need to grab this right from the backbenchers of the society.
It was Nitish Kumar himself who in 2019 had avoided any move to actualize the NRC in Bihar. “Kaahe ka NRC?” (NRC, what for?) Bilkul laagu nahin hoga (NRC, what for? Will not at all be implemented,” Nitish had said. Neither Nitish nor his party, Janata Dal (Joined Together), have, however, reacted to the EC’s continuous work in Bihar.
Questions of Prohibition, Straightforwardness, Disenfranchisement
According to the EC’s June 24 press note, the workoutis being conducted to guarantee that the names of all qualified citizens are included in the Appointive Roll (ER) so as to empower them to work out their establishment, no ineligible voter is included in the constituent rolls, and, moreover, to present total straightforwardness in the handling of expansion or cancellation of balloters in the appointive rolls.
Under the workout, appointive enrollment officers (EROs) will print pre-filled identification shapes for all existing voters and deliver them to the booth level officers (BLOs). These will be dispersed to existing balloters through door-to-door visits. This shape will, moreover, be accessible on the Decision Commission site, which can be downloaded by a voter whose title is in the constituent roll.
This raises questions around gettingto such shapes by those who are not computer proficient or country destitute, as well as transient specialists.
According to the 2011 census, Bihar, along with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, has the most noteworthy out-migration. The Niti Aayog 2023 projections show that almost 88% of the Bihar populace still dwells in country zones, whereas its education rate at 61.8% is much lower than the national normal of 73%.
How will the transient laborers, who are not in Bihar, get these shapes, and how many voters in rustic Bihar will be computer-literate enough to download them, or will have the gear to do so, or will have a satisfactory supply of power to do so?” inquired Chhokar.
With the EC presently inquiring for documentation confirmation, not as it were of voters in the shape of their birth or place of home but also of their guardians, fears of expansive-scale avoidance are rife.
Whenever the Decision Commission or the government gets into a workoutof requesting more records to demonstrate one is a citizen, in this case more than are indeed vital.
It leads to exclusions, said straightforward dissident Anjali Bhardwaj, related to Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information. There is a solid chance of large-scale avoidance, which will basically mean that individuals won’t be able to work out their right to vote.
