Patna, Bihar: “If tomorrow, our names do not find a place in the new electoral list, then I have something to ask the Election Commission and this government: how is it possible that we have been voting in the past Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections for all these years? 

A daily wage labourer from Damodarpur village in Bihar’s northern district of Muzaffarpur, Mohammad Munna, 47, has never gone to school, but has voted in three state assembly and four general elections over 19 years, using a voter identity card issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI). 

On 24 June 2025, the ECI implied it would not accept as proof of identity the same voter IDs it had issued, as part of what is called a “special intensive revision” of the electoral rolls of 78 million voters within three months in India’s poorest and second-most populous state. 

The drive started on 25 June 2025 and the anomalies produced by its rushed nature were immediately apparent. For instance, one of the 11 documents that the ECI said would be accepted was a domicile certificate, which is issued on the basis of an Aadhaar, which the ECI refuses to accept.

"Your exercise is not the problem,” said Supreme Court Justices Joymala Bagchi and Sudanshu Dhulia on July 10, hearing petitions that accused the voter drive of being illegal and designed to disenfranchise voters. “It is the timing.”

The Reporters’ Collective, an independent website, reported that the ECI ordered the SIR of Bihar’s electoral rolls despite an update completed in January 2025.  

“We have serious doubts if you can manage this exercise,” said the Supreme Court. “With such a big population being subject to this 'intensive review', is it possible to link this to the forthcoming election?" 

The Supreme Court did not stop the exercise but suggested the acceptance of more documents and safeguards. 

The next hearing of the case is on 28 July, but without waiting for the outcome, the ECI, on 5 July, ordered its chief electoral officers in the states to begin a Bihar-like  revision of electoral rolls nationwide. Assembly elections are due in 2026 in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.

The Struggle For Identity

Munna’s case reveals how difficult it will be for millions of Biharis—and later, masses of Indians—to stay on voter lists by submitting one of 11 documents that the ECI demands. 

For many voters we spoke to across four districts, especially those from marginalised communities and poor families, there was little hope they would get these documents. 

Even as 77,895 block level officers or BLOs struggled to cope with the enormity of the exercise, we found many voters saying they did not have the time or money to try. Others complained of rude and unhelpful BLOs taking away incomplete or blank forms.

With a wife and three children at home, Munna sets out every morning to look for work. The Rs 10,000 he earns pays for two daily meals for his family. There is, he said, little time to prove he is who his two identity documents say he is—an Aadhaar card is his other ID proof. 

On July 10, the Supreme Court asked the ECI to accept voter IDs, Aadhaars and ration cards as voter identity proof. "In our opinion it will be in the interest of justice if these three are included,” said Justices Bagchi and Dhulia. 

It is not clear if the ECI will do that.

Of those of voting age in his family—himself, his wife, two sons aged 22 and 18, and a daughter aged 19—only the eldest son, Mohammed Alauddin, has one of the 11 documents that the ECI will accept, a class-10 marksheet. Munna’s wife, whom he married in Delhi while he lived there, returned with him to Bihar in 2005. They were registered as voters in 2006.

Faced with the prospect of being disenfranchised after 25 years of being a voter, Munna alleged that the revision of voter rolls was an exercise “to harass the poor and the marginalised”. 

‘I Have No Documents EC Requires’ 

When we spoke to him on July 11, Munna said he had not received the enumeration forms that BLOs were supposed to have distributed. He learned about the revision of voter rolls via a new alert on his mobile phone. 

“I don’t have any documents that the EC has asked for,” said Munna. “I cannot afford not to go to work, [yet I] run from pillar to post to apply and get these documents. If they want, they can strike off our names from the electoral list.” 

Munna and his wife registered as voters in 2006, which means they must submit one of the ECI’s 11 approved documents: domicile certificate, passport, birth certificate, caste certificate, class 10th marksheet, forest right certificate, land/house allotment certificate, family register, national register of citizens (wherever it exists), identity card or pension payment order issued to regular employee or pensioner, and identity card or certificate or document issued by government, local authorities, bank, post office, public-sector companies or the Life Insurance Corporation before July 1, 1987. 

Without any of these documents the couple cannot vote in Bihar’s October-November 2025 assembly elections. 

Unlike voters registered before 2003, who only need a 2003 extract from the voter roll showing their names, Munna, his wife are among 29.3 million who must prove their date and place of birth, if they have not passed 10th standard. 

Neither he nor his wife has a birth certificate, an almost-impossible task for millions because no more than a quarter of Biharis had a birth certificate, and only 14.71% had passed 10th standard, the Indian Express reported on 5 July.

Forms and documents are due by 25 July for the 1 August draft roll, with claims and objections accepted until 30 August. The voter list will be finalised by 30 September.

“It is our constitutional right to vote,” said Munna. “Like parents have authority over their children, we also have authority over our leaders.” 

“If we are not genuine voters,” he said, “then how come our elected representatives are in constitutional positions?” 

Such frustration was a common theme in our interviews.

‘A Move To Take Away Our Voting Rights’

About 71 km south of Muzaffarpur in Bihar’s capital, 27-year-old autorickshaw driver Birju Kumar, said he and his nine-member family said he had not received any forms from the BLOs. 

On 9 July, Birju Kumar and his wife Aarti Devi (26), voted in local elections to the zila parishad and panchayat samiti seats in Paliganj, Patna district. Like his three unemployed brothers Luvkush Mistri, 29 and Raj Kishor Mistri, 22 and Brij Kishor Kumar, 21, Birju Kumar and his wife have voter ID and Aadhaar and have voted in 2020 state election, and 2019 and 2024 general elections.

Unlike everyone else of voting age in the family, Birju Kumar is the only one who has a 10-class marksheet from the local government school, one of the documents that the ECI now says it will accept. The rest are unclear how they will get documents. No one in the family has a birth certificate.

“I am afraid that my entire family can be taken off the new electoral list,” said Birju Kumar. “If that happens, that would be illogical and incomprehensible, as my wife and brothers have just voted [in local elections]. This is a move aimed at taking away our voting rights because we are poor.” 

The sole wage earner, Birju Kumar earns Rs 700-800 a day to support the family of eight. He does not intend to try and get the documents the others need to vote, he said.

“If I leave my work and try to get these documents, it will take me days and lots of money,” said Birju Kumar. “How will I support my family then?”  

Asked if he could fill forms online, if they get the documents but do not receive the enumeration forms from the BLOs, Birju Kumar said he did not know how to do that or afford to use a nearby cyber cafe.

“Inhone loot macha rakhi hai. Hum gareeb log hai. Hamare paas waise hi paise nahi hote. Ye sab kaagaz hum kaise banwayenge? (They are looting us. We are poor people. We don’t have money in any case. How will we show all these papers?),” said Birju Kumar.

‘All They Do Is Play This Document Game’

About 248 km to the east of Patna near the city of Bhagalpur, 56-year-old Kajal Devi, grazing half a dozen buffalo near the banks of the Ganga, was in a similar predicament as Munna and Birju Kumar. 

She, too, had an Aadhaar and a voter ID. She moved to Bhagalpur after her marriage. She said she could not recall when that was. She has two sons, both of whom married and left home. 

Kajal Devi, who never went to school and gets by selling milk, lives with her ailing husband. Neither has a birth certificate, a 10-class certificate or any other of the 11 required. She does not remember if she voted before 2003, in which case she does not need these documents, only an extract from the voter rolls before that year.

Even if she voted before 2003, given that no BLO has delivered a physical copy of the enumeration form to her yet, and she's uneducated and has no access to a cyber cafe/online access, she cannot screen through the 2003 voter list and submit the enumeration form online. That is only possible if a BLO reaches her and fills the form on her behalf. 

“I don’t even know that an exercise of this kind is underway,” said Kajal Devi.

“I have not been informed by anybody. No BLO has visited us. We don’t have any documents that are required.”

Like her neighbours, she lives in a flood-prone area, with no electricity and said floods had washed away their documents. “All they do is keep playing this document game instead of making our lives better,” said Kajal Devi.

The responsibility of ensuring voters like Kajal Devi get a chance to get on the new voter rolls falls on thousands of harried BLOs, more than a third of whom have only recently been appointed, with each required to reach nearly 50 households a day over a month.

‘The Anger Will Fall On Us’

It was 37 deg C in Bihar’s Gopalganj district when a team of women block level officers fanned out to distribute voter enumeration forms. 

Explaining the purpose of the voter-roll revision and the form’s requirements was no easy task, they said—especially in a state where over 38% of the population is illiterate. 

Usha Devi, the BLO in charge of booth 84, said time was running out. “People aren’t filling or submitting the forms quickly,” she said. “We have to chase them to make sure everyone’s forms are in before the deadline.”

Her colleague, 27-year-old Putul Kumari, said that while she had a young child at home who needed care, “the duty is supreme”. BLOs and their supervisors are to receive Rs 6,000 as an honorarium, according to an ECI  directive issued on 3 July.

“We will bear the brunt of the backlash from people who’ve voted for years but will find their names cut from the rolls due to missing documents,” said another BLO in Gopalganj, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We’re the face of this exercise on the ground, and the anger will fall on us.”

Several locals alleged that BLOs forcibly took back unfilled forms, despite the 25 July submission deadline. 

“The BLO demanded the form back even though we needed more time to attach documents,” said 25-year-old Nikita Singh. “They were rude and took the blank forms away. What’s the point of distributing them, if we can’t fill them out? Some of us can submit online—but what about those without Internet?”

The Election Commission has claimed near-total distribution of forms across the state. As of 12 July, form collection had reached 80.11%, suggesting four out of five electors in Bihar had submitted them.

But on the ground, many said they had yet to receive the forms. 

The process has been particularly challenging for those caught in the digital divide. In rural Bihar, patchy internet access and a lack of cyber cafes have made it difficult for residents to fill out and submit forms online. Low digital literacy has only worsened the problem.

For Bihar’s large population of migrant workers—many employed in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi—the barriers are even greater. Unable to travel back due to work or financial constraints, many miss out on home visits by BLOs, putting them at risk of being dropped from the rolls.

The result is a growing fear of disenfranchisement, especially among the state’s most vulnerable communities, heightening concerns about the fairness and inclusivity of the electoral-roll revision ahead of the upcoming elections.

The Citizenship Question

On 13 July, several media outlets, quoting Election Commission of India (ECI) “sources,” reported that BLOs had identified voters from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. These individuals, they said, would be excluded from the final electoral rolls.

No official data or further details were provided.

The Election Commission has faced criticism for appearing to undertake citizenship verification—an action beyond its constitutional mandate. However, guidelines issued for Bihar’s voter list revision allows officials to flag individuals suspected of being foreign nationals.

Experts warned that such provisions could lead to discriminatory targeting of marginalised communities, disenfranchisement, and administrative errors. Coercive collection of forms by BLOs and the rejection of commonly used IDs like Aadhaar may result in eligible voters being wrongly flagged—stoking fear and distrust in Bihar’s democratic process.

“By launching a draconian cleansing of Bihar’s electoral rolls at the most inopportune time—without adequate justification, and by effectively conducting a citizenship verification drive—the Election Commission is treading a dangerous path that threatens the credibility of both the Bihar election and the institution itself,” said Gilles Verniers, visiting assistant professor at Amherst College and an expert on Indian politics.

“Never before has the integrity of India’s electoral process been so damaged by the very institution meant to safeguard it,” Verniers added.

Former chief election commissioner T S Krishnamurthy defended the Commission’s actions, arguing that the ECI had “every right and responsibility” to ensure clean and accurate rolls.

“Political parties and voters should point out flaws and deficiencies to officials to improve the credibility of the process,” said Krishnamurthy.

“The preparation of accurate electoral rolls is the ECI’s primary responsibility, but that requires mutual trust between the Commission and voters.”

The special revision of electoral rolls in Bihar has also drawn sharp criticism from Opposition leaders, who allege voter suppression. 

On 26 June, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the ECI of conducting a “backdoor NRC”—referring to the controversial National Register of Citizens exercise—as a means to disenfranchise voters ahead of the 2026 West Bengal elections.

Calling the effort “more dangerous than NRC,” Banerjee urged Opposition parties to unite against the ongoing electoral roll revisions.

(Syed Abubakr and Sumit Singh are freelance journalists based in Delhi.)

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