In a democracy of 1.4 billion, every vote matters. But for millions of migrants from Bihar, democracy is quietly leaving them behind. A silent crisis is unfolding, where the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of State electoral rolls, and at short notice, has led to the mass deletion of nearly 3.5 million migrants (4.4% of the total voters). These are the migrants who have been labelled as “permanently migrated” for being absent during house-to-house verification. These voters now face permanent disenfranchisement not just in their places of work but also at home.
In a State where migration is not just an economic choice but also a survival strategy, this sweeping administrative action is threatening to erase millions from India’s democratic record. For decades, out-migration has sustained Bihar’s economy and its households. Locked homes, especially among poor and most vulnerable migrants, are a common sight across villages. Increasingly, migrants either migrate with their families or shift their families to marital homes for their care and safety. Yet, this reality of circular and split-family migration is now being read by the state as an abandonment of electoral rights.
The ‘sedentary citizen’ is the issue
The deeper issue lies in India’s electoral infrastructure, which is still designed around a sedentary citizen. Voter registration is tethered to proof of residence and in-person verification. But for migrant workers — many live in rented rooms, at construction sites, on foot paths or in slums — such documentation is either unavailable or denied.
This exclusion deepens in the context of regionalism and sub-nationalism, where migrants are often seen as job-stealers or political threats. Growing demands for job quotas in private sectors and strict domicile-based norms for government jobs reflect the larger political sentiments, which curtails the political inclusion of migrants. In host States, migrants are treated as outsiders and fears of altered electoral outcomes fuel resistance to their enfranchisement. It discourages voter registration at destinations. As a result, migrants remain stuck: unable to register in destination States, and now removed from their origin rolls.
The findings of a study
A Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai study in November 2015, funded by the Election Commission of India, titled ‘Inclusive Elections in India: A Study on Domestic Migration and Issues in Electoral Participation’, confirmed the marginalisation of migrants in a host State’s electoral processes. The study identifies a triple burden — administrative barriers, digital illiteracy, and social exclusion — preventing a migrant from effectively participating in electoral processes. Crucially, the study found that lower voter turnout was directly correlated with the higher migration rates in the source States. And yet, rather than bridging this turnout gap, Bihar’s SIR initiative is widening the democratic deficit.
This is not just a bureaucratic failure. It is a democratic rupture. The average turnout rate in Bihar’s last four Assembly elections was only 53.2%, the lowest among major Indian States. In contrast, Gujarat and Karnataka — States with fewer outbound migrants — reported an average of a turnout of 66.4% and 70.7%, respectively, in the last four elections.
Our own estimates, based on mobile visitor location register data, suggest an annual outflow of approximately seven million circular migrants from Bihar. Out of this number, 4.8 million migrate seasonally between June and September. However, half of them (2.7 million) return home during the festivals of Durga Puja, Chhath and Deepavali between October and November. This year, where there will be an Assembly election, many of the return migrants will be unable to vote as their names have been struck off. Without coordination with destination States to verify or re-enrol these voters, the deletion process becomes a de facto disenfranchisement of the poor migrants.
The limited uptake of the ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ Scheme in the last six years, since its launch in 2019 (nation-wide portability of ration card holders under National Food Security Act, 2013), underscores the constraints of migrants in the host States. Most migrants from Bihar avail rations in their home State, with only 3.3 lakh households availing portability in destination States as of May 2025. Dual residency, fear of losing entitlements and bureaucratic hurdles deter transfers. The same logic applies to voter IDs — they keep origin-based documents not because they are indifferent to civic duties, but because they lack security and acceptance in host States.
This dual belonging — economic participation in host States, political identity in home States — is now being demonised by the state. Migrants are being told bluntly that ‘if you’re not home when we knock, your right to vote vanishes’.
Along the 1,751 kilometre-long open India-Nepal border, the issue becomes even more complex. The region has long celebrated the “roti-beti ka rishta”, a tradition of cross-border economic and marital ties. Many Nepali and Indian women migrate post-marriage, yet new documentation norms and restrictive citizenship interpretations now threaten their legal and electoral status. Here, disenfranchisement is not just regional or class-based but also gendered and xenophobic.
Time for a portable identity system
The way forward is clear. India must move toward portable, flexible, and mobile voter identity systems. The Election Commission of India must halt blanket deletions of migrants and adopt a cross-verification model with destination State voter rolls. Civil society and local governance bodies such as panchayats should be empowered to conduct migrant outreach and re-registration drives.
It is high time that the Kerala model of migration surveys should be replicated among high internal migration origin States such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. If these steps are not taken, India risks scripting the largest silent voter purge in post-Independence India — a purge not of enemies, but of the hard-working poor who leave home only in search of bread, dignity and work.
S. Irudaya Rajan is Chair, International Institute of Migration and Development, Kerala. Arif Nizam is an independent migration researcher based in Bihar
Published – August 21, 2025 12:08 am IST