The curious case of a missing Election Commission order on 2003 voter list revision in Bihar

In 2003, the Election Commission of India carried out an intensive revision of the voter list in Bihar.

In such an exercise, the voter list is created from scratch, with a door-to-door verification of all households in the state. This is in addition to the year-round checks of the roll carried out by the Election Commission, by inviting claims and objections from the public.

This list, created 22 years ago, is the basis on which the poll body has embarked on a “special intensive revision” of the state’s electoral roll.

Those featured on this 2003 list qualify for inclusion in the revised electoral roll without having to prove their citizenship – a condition that voters who have been added to the roll after 2003 will have to meet.

By the Election Commission’s own estimate, the number of such voters is a staggering 2.93 crore.

Others estimate that this figure could be as high as 4.76 crore.

The ongoing exercise has sparked widespread concerns of disenfranchisement, especially of poor and marginalised voters, who are struggling to produce documents to prove their citizenship.

It has also raised questions about whether the Election Commission is introducing a new standard that it did not apply to previous voter list revisions in Bihar.

But more than two...

Read more

News