The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to furnish details of the 3.66 lakh voters whose names were excluded from the final electoral roll prepared after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi directed the poll panel to submit the information by Thursday (October 9), when the court will continue hearing pleas challenging the SIR exercise.
The ECI informed the bench that most of the additions in the final list were new voters, and so far, no complaint or appeal has been filed by any excluded voter. The court observed that since both the draft and final electoral rolls have been published, the required data on excluded voters can be provided through a comparative analysis.
Transparency in Electoral Process
During the hearing, Justice Bagchi told senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the Election Commission, that the court’s orders had improved transparency and access in the electoral process.
“You’d agree with us that the degree of transparency and access has improved in the electoral process. It appears from the data that there was a 65 lakh deletion in the draft list which you published, and we said whoever is dead or moved is alright, but if you are deleting someone, please follow Rule 21 and the SOP. We also said that whoever is deleted, please put up their data in your electoral offices. Now the final list appears to be an appreciation of numbers and there is confusion in the general democratic process — what is the identity of the add-ons, are they of deleted names or new names,” Justice Bagchi said.
The bench noted that the number of electors in the final list reflects an appreciation of figures compared to the draft roll, and to avoid any confusion, the identity of the “add-ons” should be disclosed.
Dwivedi clarified that while some old voters were reinstated after the draft roll, the majority of additions were new voters.
Revisions and Voter Numbers
On September 30, the Election Commission published the final electoral roll for poll-bound Bihar, announcing a net reduction of around 47 lakh voters compared to the pre-revision figure. The number of electors came down from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore after the SIR.
However, compared to the draft list published on August 1, which had 7.24 crore voters following the deletion of 65 lakh names due to death, migration, or duplication, the final roll saw an increase of 17.87 lakh voters.
- 21.53 lakh new voters were added after the draft list
- 3.66 lakh names were removed
- Resulting in a net increase of 17.87 lakh voters in the final list
Bihar Election Schedule
The Election Commission has already announced the poll schedule for the 243-member Bihar Assembly.
- 121 constituencies will go to the polls on November 6
- The remaining 122 constituencies will vote on November 11
- Counting of votes will take place on November 14
