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EC publishes final electoral roll for Bihar, records 68L deletion, 21L addition

New Delhi: About 68 lakh deletions and 21.53 lakh additions have been recorded in Bihar's electoral roll as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), leaving the state with about 7.42 crore registered voters. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday said the revision, which ran from June 24 to September 30, involved systematic scrutiny of the rolls that began with 7.89 crore names. Around 65 lakh electors were removed by the time the draft roll was published on August 1, and further scrutiny after objections eliminated another 3.66 lakh. Simultaneously, more than 21.5 lakh new voters came on the rolls through Form 6, meant for fresh enrolment of citizens who turn 18 or had not been registered earlier. The draft electoral roll published in August carried 7.24 crore electors. According to the Commission's data, of the 65 lakh names removed at that stage, 22 lakh belonged to deceased persons, 36 lakh to individuals who had permanently shifted or could not be found at their addresses, and seven lakh to voters with duplicate entries. In the claims and objections window that followed, the Commission issued about three lakh notices, received over 2.17 lakh deletion requests and 16.93 lakh inclusion requests. Between August 1 and September 1 alone, over 16.56 lakh new applications through Form 6 were filed, with another 36,000 seeking inclusion through claims. Deletion requests continued during this period, numbering more than 2.17 lakh. The applications submitted between September 1 and 30 will now be processed from October 1, and under law, voters can still seek inclusion up to 10 days before nominations close, with their names being added in a supplementary list. At the district level, changes were significant. In Arwal district, the final list published on September 30 recorded 5.23 lakh electors, up from 5.11 lakh in the draft list. During the revision, 14,121 names were added, 2,245 removed and corrections made in 8,195 entries. In Patna district, covering 14 assembly constituencies, the final tally is 48.15 lakh electors, an increase of 1.63 lakh over the draft published in August. District election officers released the final lists in the presence of political party representatives. The revision exercise was not without dispute. The Supreme Court has been monitoring the SIR exercise in response to petitions led by the Association for Democratic Reforms, which challenged the scale and procedure of deletions. On August 14, the court directed the Election Commission to publish a searchable list of the 65 lakh deleted electors along with reasons for their removal, noting categories such as "deceased", "permanently shifted", "absent" or "duplicate entry". The Commission uploaded the list within 56 hours, while also defending the exercise as necessary given that Bihar's electoral roll had not been intensively revised since 2003. It argued that demographic changes, migration and urbanisation warranted a clean-up of records, and maintained that notices had been served before any deletion. Petitioners, however, told the court that the burden of proving eligibility was being shifted unfairly onto voters, and that migrant workers, women and other marginalised groups risked being disproportionately excluded. Initially, the Commission prescribed 11 documents for verification, but left out Aadhaar, voter ID and ration cards. This triggered protests from political parties and civil society, who argued that commonly available documents were being excluded. On September 9, the Commission issued instructions to the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer to include Aadhaar as the twelfth document, in compliance with a Supreme Court order, clarifying that it could be accepted as proof of identity but not of citizenship. The court has scheduled a final hearing for October 7 and has indicated that it may annul the entire electoral roll if it finds any illegality in the revision process. The Election Commission has said that all political parties were involved at multiple stages, with booth-level lists of potentially deceased or shifted electors being shared with their agents. It has also committed to providing physical and digital copies of the final rolls to parties and voters. The final roll published on September 30 will now be the basis for the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections. The Election Commission has also announced that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and other senior officials will visit Bihar on October 4 and 5 to assess the state's election preparedness. The visit will include meetings with state election authorities and law enforcement agencies to review logistics, security arrangements, and the final electoral roll. Following this visit, the Election Commission is expected to announce the election schedule within a day or two.

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