An Election Commission of India (ECI) note submitted on Monday (September 1, 2025) in the Supreme Court showed that requests to delete/exclude names from the Bihar draft electoral roll “overwhelmed” claims for inclusion by almost six times between August 22 and August 30, 2025.
August 22, 2025, was when the court enabled voters to use Aadhaar as a standalone document to file their respective forms of claims or objections in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Bihar SIR hearing | Highlights from September 1, 2025
The judicial direction recognising Aadhaar as an eligible document was expected to bolster applications for inclusion in the draft roll. Both petitioners and political parties had claimed there was a “surge” of excluded voters who wanted their names restored in the Bihar electoral roll after August 22.
Instead, the ECI said it had received only 22,723 claims for inclusion from August 22 to August 30, 2025.
On the other hand, the same period saw an “overwhelming” 1,34,738 objections filed to exclude/remove names from the draft roll, the ECI told a Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi.
“In many cases, voters are coming to say their names are on another voter list. Deletions of names from the draft list are sought for reasons of death and duplications,” senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for the ECI, submitted.
The preliminary voter list had excluded approximately 65 lakh electors in Bihar, citing reasons including death, permanent shifting, or duplication. The total number of voters, following the publication of the draft roll on August 1, fell from 7.89 crore to 7.24 crore.
The ECI clarified to the Supreme Court that claims and objections could be filed even after the September 1 deadline. The petitioners’ side, represented by senior advocate Shoab Alam for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, wanted an extension till September 15.
“The filing of claims or objections is not barred after September 1. These can be submitted even after the deadline. The applications submitted for claim, objections or corrections after September 1 will be considered after the electoral roll has been finalised. The process of consideration of claims and objections continues until the last date of nominations, and all inclusions and exclusions are integrated in the final roll,” a note submitted by the ECI explained in court.
In a criticism aimed at political parties, the ECI said none of them, other than the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPI-M-L-L), had assisted excluded voters in Bihar to file their claims for inclusion in the electoral roll.
“Apart from CPI (M-L-L) and RJD, none of the other recognised political parties have, either through their office-bearers or validly appointed booth level agents [BLAs], assisted any elector out of the approximately 65 lakh whose names are not included in the draft roll to submit Form 6 [form for inclusion under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960] with declaration. None of the other recognised political parties have enabled filing of claims or objections in the prescribed format,” the ECI’s note highlighted.
The August 22 order of the apex court had listed the names of the recognised parties in Bihar, including the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the Indian National Congress (Congress), the National People’s Party (NPP), the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), the Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas (LJP-RV), the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP), and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP). They have a combined force of 1,60,813 BLAs working on the ground.
The ECI said it had received a total of 128 forms from political parties during the ‘claims and objections’ period. Of this, 103 were for the deletion of names from the draft roll, while only 25 sought inclusion of names in the preliminary voter list.
The poll body said individual voters were more proactive than political outfits. The ECI said it received 33,326 forms from individual voters for inclusion in the draft roll, and 2,07,565 forms (Form 7 of the 1960 Rules) for deletion.
Justice Kant read symptoms of trust deficit between political parties and individual voters.
The court directed the Chairperson of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to activate paralegal volunteers to help individuals and political parties to submit claims, objections and corrections in every district across the State. Each para legal volunteer would file individual confidential reports of the information gathered by them to the District and Sessions Judge concerned.
The top poll body further informed the court that 99.5% of the electors out of the 7.24 crore featured in the draft electoral roll had already submitted their eligibility documents.
“The verification of these documents is currently going on and is scheduled to be completed by September 25 as per SIR order of June 26,” the ECI’s note said.
It said 15.3 lakh new voters in Bihar had applied for inclusion in the electoral roll.
Published – September 01, 2025 05:07 pm IST