Quratulain RehbarIn the floodplains of India's eastern state of Bihar, where villagers paddle through waist-deep water to reach homes, another deadline presses down.
As the floods displaced some 2.5 million people across ten districts, the Election Commission of India began a special revision of the voters’ list, apparently a simple bureaucratic exercise requiring citizens to resubmit identity documents to remain eligible to vote.
For Sameer [pseudonym], a 35-year-old from Bihar’s capital city Patna, the discovery that his name had disappeared from the rolls was jolting. He only learned of it when a family member checked the draft list.
“If we don’t have voter IDs, they [authorities] will say we’re not from this country,” he tells TRT World.
Sameer admits he was unaware of the revision process. “We don’t know much about where to get documents. I am an uneducated man,” he says.
His family holds government-approved documents: an identification number known as Aadhaar, and a ration card that serves as official proof for procuring subsidised food and fuel.
But neither is accepted as evidence of citizenship under the new requirements, leaving him uncertain whether he will be able to vote or even access government benefits.
The month-long revision of voter rolls, carried out in June-July, before state elections, prompted fierce opposition. Critics say the revision disproportionately harms the poor and minorities, who often lack documents.
Bihar has become the epicentre of the dispute, just months ahead of high-stakes state elections in November. Analysts say it is the first election in which Modi’s party will invoke the brief six-day conflict in May with Pakistan.
India’s top election body released updated draft voter rolls in the state, cutting 6.5 million names after the month-long verification drive, the first such revision since 2003.
A survey by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), one of India’s largest human rights groups, across 262 households in August, found that 17 percent were asked to resubmit documents.
For Sarfaraz-Uddin, PUCL’s general secretary in Bihar and a petitioner before the country’s top court, the problem is personal.
Of six voters in his household, four were flagged for resubmission despite having already filed the required papers.
“If this can happen to us, people who know how to navigate the system, imagine what happens to the poor or those without internet access,” he tells TRT World.
Calling the revision “the most dangerous attack on democracy,” Sarfaraz warns that the poor and minorities would be disproportionately excluded.
“Muslims don’t have caste certificates, large numbers of poor lack passports or matriculation papers. Aadhaar is not accepted as proof of citizenship. This exercise will exclude lakhs of people.”
Opposition parties fiercely opposed the move and have been protesting against it, claiming it was selectively implemented to “disenfranchise millions” and tilt the playing field in favour of the BJP.
Officials insist the deletions target duplicates, migrants, and the deceased, and corrections remain open until September 1 before a nationwide review of nearly a billion voters.
Vote theft and bias?
The Election Commission of India, long seen as a pillar of democracy, has come under sharp attack.
Anjali Bhardwaj, a social activist and co-convenor of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, told TRT World that the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar has created widespread fear and anxiety of disenfranchisement.
“The Commission has asked voters to provide documents such as passports or birth certificates, which are rarely available to the poor, women, and marginalized communities. Meanwhile, common IDs like Aadhaar and ration cards do not qualify,” she said.
Bhardwaj added, “The problem is compounded by the lack of transparency. When the Commission published the first draft list in Bihar, it showed that nearly 65 lakh names were missing but failed to disclose the reasons for their deletion. If people don’t know whether they have been listed as dead, migrated, or duplicates, how can they file objections or appeals in time?”
She stressed that access to information is essential to prevent such errors and protect rights. Citing past cases in Rajasthan, she noted that old-age pensioners were wrongly declared dead until public scrutiny corrected the records. “People could appeal if there are errors,” she said, emphasising that the lack of transparency makes it nearly impossible for citizens to restore their names.
“Beyond Bihar, the Commission’s opacity—whether in refusing to share records behind the SIR decision, or in withholding key election data like form 17C or CCTV footage—risks eroding faith in the institution itself. The Election Commission is supposed to be the referee of elections. If people lose trust in its fairness, the credibility of the entire democratic process is undermined,” Bhardwaj said.
Transparency and trust under threat
From the controversial revision in Bihar to allegations of “vote theft” in the 2024 general election, critics accuse the body of tilting the field in favour of the ruling party.
From the controversial revision in Bihar to allegations of “vote theft” in the 2024 general election, critics accuse the Election Commission of tilting the field in favour of the ruling party.
Political commentator Apoorvanand Jha argues that over the last five years, the Commission has been “very partisan, very lenient towards the BJP and very harsh on opposition parties.” He said, “It creates an uneven playing field where the opposition is restrained in many ways and the BJP is given a free hand.”
Jha also points to structural manipulations that critics say exacerbate the imbalance. The Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, he says, was “arbitrary, rushed, and designed to disenfranchise disadvantaged communities. By excluding documents like Aadhaar, which most people actually have, the Commission was effectively determining citizenship—something it has no mandate to do.”
For minorities, the consequences can be existential. Jha notes, “For minorities, especially Muslims, the impact is existential. They are unequal in almost every field—education, employment, resources. The only thing that gives them a sense of equality is the right to vote. If that too is taken away, it sends the message that they do not belong.”
The Election Commission and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP reject these claims.
But a pre-poll survey in 2024 found public trust in the ECI has nearly halved in five years: only 28 percent of voters expressed “great trust,” down from 51 percent in 2019.
The distrust coincides with Modi’s third consecutive term.
His BJP won 240 of 543 seats, short of a majority, but secured 293 with allies in the National Democratic Alliance.
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition party, the Congress, cited Mahadevapura in Karnataka, alleging that more than 100,000 votes were “stolen” through duplicate entries and bulk registrations. He also cited an instance of 80 people registered in a single address in Mahadevapura.
Suspicion was cast on electronic voting machines (EVMs). While the ECI insists they are tamper-proof, opposition leaders say restricted access to CCTV footage and refusal to share machine-readable rolls created space for irregularities.
BJP has accused the opposition of “selective outrage". “Congress celebrates the system when it wins and questions it when it loses,” BJP leaders, including current ministers, have argued, framing the current protests as opportunistic.
“The lower voters are on the caste and class ladder, the higher the costs of compliance with the election commission’s regulations,” says Asim Ali, a political analyst.
“Because many poor citizens lack documentary resources, their voting rights risk becoming subject to bureaucratic indulgence and political patronage. That compromises their ability to hold the state to account—and for some, it may mean losing the ability to vote altogether.”
‘An electoral autocracy?’
The row, say analysts, risks tarnishing India’s democratic reputation abroad.
“Legitimacy of elections will now come under the scanner for international actors and watchdogs who have already downgraded India’s democracy,” says Ali.
The V-Dem Institute in Sweden has called India an ‘electoral autocracy.’ If questions are raised about the voting process itself, the only saving grace of India’s democracy also comes under doubt, according to Asim.
ECI has pushed back against the allegations.
In a press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar dismissed the allegations as “misleading” and an insult to the Constitution.
He demanded Gandhi submit an affidavit within seven days or publicly apologise, warning that failure to do so would render the charges “baseless and invalid.”
On August 11, dozens of opposition leaders—including Gandhi, were briefly detained by police in New Delhi while attempting to march to the poll panel’s office.
Former chief election commissioner Om Prakash Rawat defends the poll panel but feels that it could have taken a better approach.
“Errors in India’s voter rolls — like duplicate names or outdated entries — do occur, but that is very different from actual vote theft,” Rawat tells TRT World.
He says the polling process has multiple safeguards, including photo ID checks, party agents at booths, and indelible ink marking, “which make tampering nearly impossible”.
The Commission, he adds, runs nationwide de-duplication drives to clean the rolls, and while no system is flawless, its “objectivity should not be in doubt.”
However, the ECI took a different stand this time.
“Unfortunately, this time the commission asked the opposition to submit affidavits instead, and that has created the stalemate.”
Analysts warn that the bigger danger lies in eroding faith at home.
“Over three decades, the election commission succeeded in convincing even illiterate voters of its neutrality. That trust gap had almost vanished by 2019,” adds Ali.
But controversies such as the Bihar revision risk undoing that progress, particularly for poorer, less educated, and minority voters, according to Asim.
The Commission’s biggest achievement, he adds, was to build trust across class lines. “If that trust unravels now, the credibility of Indian elections as genuinely free and fair could collapse.”
