EC ‘clarifies’ rules as Bihar voter roll drive starts today

THe Election direction made important clarifications — with some rules eased — regarding its controversial “special intensive” elector verification ride in Bihar, allowing residents to give in forms based on self-declaration without documentary proof at the draft stage, as it sought to navigate massive logistical challenges and quell criticism that the exercise could lead to mass disenfranchisement.The commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls will kick off on Sunday across Bihar’s 38 districts, with over 78,000 booth-level officers conducting door-to-door surveys of the state’s 77.2 million voters over the next month.Officials within the Election Commission clarified that the exercise is “not a de-novo exercise—meaning we are not creating a brand-new roll from scratch”.In one of the key accommodations, commission officials said residents can now submit enumeration forms without any documentary proof and still have their names included in the draft electoral roll.“Even without documents, if the enumeration form is tick-marked, and has basic details, the name will be included in the draft. No names are being deleted at this stage,” said a person aware of the matter within the Election Commission. “Later, a complete hearing will be given to the people who don’t have the documents.”Earlier instructions stated that voters who failed to submit forms by July 25 would have their names struck from the draft roll — the panel then did not specify if these could be forms without the documents. Even mobile numbers and dates of birth are no longer “forced to be given,” officials said.For the estimated 50 million voters from the 2003 electoral roll, the commission is sending SMS alerts directing them to download digital copies from the commission website. These voters can simply take screenshots of their 2003 enrolment and submit those as proof along with their forms.State chief secretary Amrit Lal Meena separately said in Patna that rural voters lacking formal birth certificates can use land records, tenant ledgers and property papers as proof of residency and citizenship. “The khatiyan records do indicate that a person is an ordinary resident of the state and his forefathers belonged here. So, it is an admissible land record as prescribed by the ECI in SIR guidelines,” Meena said.The commission has also introduced family tree certificates as acceptable proof. “If proof of place of birth records are missing, then we will push for a family register or family tree certificate which one can get locally,” the Election Commission official cited in the first instance said.The commission has deployed over 100,000 volunteers specifically to assist “vulnerable groups” including the elderly, disabled and poor, while recognized political parties have appointed more than 154,000 booth-level agents to help with voter education.To streamline the exercise, the commission has printed nearly 160 million pre-filled enumeration forms—more than double Bihar’s 77.2 million voters—each carrying unique QR codes to prevent misplacement or errors.“For the BLO, this makes digitisation very easy. Each form has a QR code to prevent documents of one person from being attached to another. We are not creating a new list, just using the existing database and cleaning it,” said a second commission official. Bihar polls are expected later this year.For the estimated 30 million who migrate annually for work, the commission created online application systems and allows family members to submit forms on their behalf.“Families whose some members are working outside the state would have to give a declaration that the voter of their family is working outside and also have to give proof of their date of birth/ place of birth by submitting any 11 documents as prescribed,” said sub-divisional officer Rakesh Kumar Singh.Opposition parties have attacked the exercise as a “backdoor” implementation of the National Register of Citizens, the contentious citizenship verification process that removed 1.9 million people as citizens in Assam.West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee called the Bihar exercise “more dangerous than the NRC,” while Bihar’s opposition Mahagathbandhan alliance plans protests over what it calls an attempt to manipulate voter lists before state elections expected later this year.“We apprised the CEO that lakhs of families in the state do not have documents as being asked to establish their place of birth or date of birth for inclusion in the electoral rolls. This is a conspiracy to deprive lakhs of electors from exercising their franchise in the state,” said Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Chittaranjan Gagan last week.Legal experts have raised concerns about the process giving election bureaucracy unprecedented power over citizenship determinations. “The SIR makes the government the final authority despite it being an interested party in this dispute. This is completely contrary to the principles of natural justice for deciding disputes,” said Venkatesh Nayak, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).Bihar AIMIM spokesperson Aadil Hasan criticised the inclusion of family tree certificates, saying that obtaining them “from a panchayat mukhiya is not valid, so the person has to be part of red-tapism and this will not ease the process; rather, more people will be excluded.”Implementation and challengesGround-level officers are raising practical concerns about the ambitious timeline and expressing confusion about implementation. Booth-level officers questioned whether they can verify over 1,200 voters each in just 25 days, particularly during monsoon season when rural areas become difficult to access.“There is no clarity as to whether migrants or voters absent from their place of official address should be included in the rolls or not,” said Mahmood Alam, a booth-level officer in Araria who underwent training Saturday. “We hope to get clarity in a few days.”“Can BLOs cover all 300 odd families in the next 25 days visiting household thrice for distribution and collection of forms. The SIR should have been done six months earlier. Now, this exercise would be a haphazard job and many voters may not find their names in the rolls,” said Om Prakash Yadav, a retired IAS officer who has been engaged in past elections in Bihar.The challenges are particularly acute for the most marginalised communities. “Such people have neither any academic documents nor have any land related papers,” said Alam, referring to the landless and illiterate populations.Constitutional mandate vs practical realityThe Election Commission defended the exercise Saturday, citing Article 326 of India’s Constitution that restricts voting to Indian citizens above 18 who are ordinary residents of their constituency.“The Constitution of India is supreme. All citizens, political parties and the Election Commission of India follow the Constitution,” the commission said in a statement.The commission said Electoral Registration Officers are instructed to treat the 2003 electoral roll as “probative evidence of eligibility, including presumption of citizenship unless they receive any other input otherwise.”In response to NRC comparisons, commission officials said: “Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) cannot decide on citizenship. We have learned from the 1995 court judgment, and we will ensure a proper hearing opportunity. If the ERO is not convinced, then he will refer the matter to higher authorities for further inquiry.”Bihar represents the first phase of a planned nationwide electoral roll revision, with five other states — Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal — scheduled for similar exercises before 2026 elections.The commission says the revision addresses “rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants.”