In recent years, India has experienced a subtle, yet significant, shift in how citizenship and national belonging are defined, and, increasingly, how voting rights are determined. This transformation is most evident in the ongoing electoral roll revision by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in Bihar, just months before the State Assembly elections later this year. The hurried and opaque nature of this process risks the wrongful exclusion of lakhs of eligible voters, posing a serious threat not only to the integrity of the electoral system but also to the constitutional values of equality, fraternity and justice.
Anything but a routine update
On the surface, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar appears to be a routine update. But in practice, it is anything but. Nearly 4.74 crore voters — close to 60% of Bihar’s electorate — are now required to prove their eligibility through a new set of documents. The threshold for inclusion has shifted dramatically. Under the SIR guidelines, any voter not listed in the 2003 rolls must now provide documentary proof of citizenship. This includes birth certificate, school-leaving documents, land deeds, or official citizenship papers, which are records that are difficult to produce even in urban centres, let alone in the rural stretches of Bihar. Crucially, many of these documents, particularly birth certificate, are the responsibility of the state to issue. However, the state has historically failed to do so at scale, placing the burden on individuals to obtain and provide them.
What is being presented as a neutral “clean-up” of electoral rolls carries a serious risk of disenfranchising millions. The poor, Muslims and migrant workers, who make up a significant portion of Bihar’s population, with migrants alone constituting around 20% are likely to be disproportionately affected. There is a significant risk that large numbers of migrant workers, predominantly men, could be removed from electoral rolls.
This represents a sharp break from previous practices, where self-declaration was deemed sufficient for enrolment, a principle supported by electoral regulations and the Supreme Court of India. The shift suggests a deeper reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and its citizens.
The ECI claims that the revision is aimed at eliminating duplicate entries, removing deceased voters and filtering out ineligible electors, while also including newly eligible ones. Legally, the ECI is empowered to do this. But the scale, the timing and the method of the current exercise are deeply problematic. It is neither practical to execute such a massive overhaul within a few weeks, nor reasonable to demand documentation that many voters, particularly from marginalised communities, simply do not possess. Media reports suggest that many such voters do have widely held government-issued IDs such as Aadhaar, voter ID card, labour cards, and MGNREGA cards, none of which is being accepted as sufficient proof of eligibility.
There is a Kafkaesque irony at the heart of this: the very voter ID cards issued by the ECI are now deemed inadequate. By refusing to recognise its own identification document, the ECI is not only disenfranchising citizens but also eroding its institutional credibility. If its own ID cards are no longer considered trustworthy for verification, what does that imply about the integrity of the electoral process and the legitimacy of past elections?
An encroachment
Electoral integrity is not just about removing duplicates; it is about ensuring that every citizen has an opportunity to vote. The ECI’s mandate is to facilitate participation, not put up bureaucratic hurdles. By shifting into the terrain of citizenship verification, the ECI is encroaching upon a domain that lies with the judiciary and designated tribunals. There is an apprehension that Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) could be given the authority to refer individuals suspected of being foreign nationals to citizenship authorities — a task previously outside the ECI’s remit.
This shift, and the resistance to it, both have precedent. In the past, the judiciary has expressed concern over attempts to place the burden of proving citizenship on individuals, including those who had already participated in the electoral process. It has held that prior inclusion on an electoral roll implies that verification had already taken place. Again, in 2005, during the Assam roll revision, the Court stressed that anyone facing deletion from the rolls must be given notice and an opportunity to respond, and that questions of citizenship must be resolved by the appropriate authority.
The current process in Bihar, with its heavy documentation demands and compressed timelines, is beginning to resemble a de facto National Register of Citizens (NRC) but without any legislative basis or judicial oversight. It imports the logic of citizenship audits into electoral administration, turning a democratic procedure into an exclusionary instrument.
There is a deeper political logic behind the timing of this voter roll revision exercise. Its launch is particularly significant in the context of fiercely contested State elections, where every vote matters. The political motivations are hard to ignore: estimates suggest that as many as two crore voters could be removed from the rolls if the current process continues unchecked. In States such as Bihar, the deletion of even a few hundred thousand names could decisively influence outcomes in tightly contested constituencies. Already facing strong anti-incumbency sentiment and a growing challenge from the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) stands to gain from such revisions. With the outcome still uncertain, voter roll revisions take on clear political significance.
Compounding matters is the logistical challenge. The ECI has launched this document-heavy exercise during the monsoon season, when large parts of Bihar are flood-prone. It has imposed a 30-day deadline — a window in which many migrant workers are still away from home. This confluence of administrative rigidity and ecological vulnerability has created a perfect storm for disenfranchisement. An institution entrusted with ensuring free and fair elections, risks becoming a gatekeeper to democratic participation.
The larger implications
Critics rightly see the revision as a form of demographic manipulation — a subtler version of gerrymandering by exclusion. The implications go well beyond Bihar, carrying national significance.
This new process is part of a broader political project aimed at weakening pluralism, even as substantive political participation and contestation are systematically constrained. It aligns with majoritarian narratives that cast a doubt on the loyalty and belonging of certain communities, particularly Muslims, and seeks to diminish their political influence by undermining both their representation and their right to vote.
What is unfolding in Bihar may well serve as a template for other States. ECI officials have indicated plans for similar special revisions in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. If this model is replicated, it may institutionalise a more document-intensive approach to voter verification — one that risks undoing decades of progress in empowering historically marginalised communities by offering them meaningful opportunities to participate in the democratic process.
The Bihar voter roll revision is now under challenge in the Supreme Court for violating fundamental rights including the right to vote, equality before law, non-discrimination, and dignity. If it is not struck down, it could strip lakhs of citizens of their right to vote, distorting electoral outcomes and eroding faith in democratic institutions. What is at risk is not just participation, but the very credibility of free and fair elections, an inviolable part of the Constitution’s basic structure.
Zoya Hasan is Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Published – July 09, 2025 12:16 am IST