Bihar Assembly Elections: After SIR uproar, time to move on with trust in poll process

The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, beginning with poll-bound Bihar, has been underway for nearly two-and-a-half months.

The draft electoral roll for Bihar is ready after enumeration, with the claims and objections period closing on September 1 following the Supreme Court's refusal to extend it. Citizens, however, can still apply until the last date of nomination in each constituency.

The Assembly election process must conclude by November 22, with the final electoral roll due on September 30. The poll schedule is expected within weeks, ushering in a more action-packed phase as formal campaigning begins.


Protests, not Objections
Amid the uproar in and outside Parliament over the removal of 65 lakh names from the draft roll, the claims and objections process has seen only limited activity. Electors raised about 2.5 lakh issues-mostly exclusions-while political parties, despite deploying 1.6 lakh booth-level agents (BLAs), filed barely 150 cases in the prescribed format. If this suggests the draft roll had political endorsement at the ground level and required no major correction, the Election Commission of India (ECI) deserves credit. But if it reflects political indifference, it does little good to India's electoral system. The Supreme Court, noting this inactivity with surprise, called for para-legal volunteers to help citizens file claims and objections. For parties, the stakes lie in electoral outcomes; for citizens, it is about safeguarding their voting rights-an entitlement, and almost a civic duty, to flag omissions and errors in the rolls.

Scrutiny Time
On the road to the final roll, facilitation and flexibility have clearly improved compared to the start of the SIR, with several measures directed by the Supreme Court. Citizens missing from the August 1 draft roll can now file claims with an Aadhaar copy, while those aggrieved by deletions can trace their entries in a searchable draft roll on district websites, complete with reasons for removal.

The next critical steps rest with Bihar's 243 electoral registration officers (EROs), ssisted by 3,000 AEROs, over 90,000 booth-level officers (BLOs) and lakhs of volunteers. The EROs will examine each case and verify documents till September 25, before publishing the final roll. Appeals to district magistrates and the state chief electoral officer (CEO) will remain open.

Shape of things
Given the limited number of objections, most of the 65 lakh electors removed from the draft roll-on grounds of death, migration, absence, or duplication-are likely to remain excluded. The draft list of 7.24 crore voters may see only minor changes, with 99.5% already submitting documents. Nearly 17 lakh new voters, who recently turned 18, have applied for enrolment-an inclusion dividend of the EC's outreach efforts. The commission has mobilised its ground staff for this ambitious revision, also raising poll officials' remuneration after a decade.

The EC, vested with constitutional authority, has described the SIR as a "purification" exercise, and the Supreme Court has endorsed its competence to carry it out. How effectively enumeration and authentication work in practice, however, remains a matter of implementation.

A list in flux
In building the world's largest electoral roll-now inching towards a billion-absolute accuracy is utopia. The current SIR exercise may, however, encourage closer scrutiny in annual revisions. Reviving familiar allegations about rolls serves little purpose except to reinforce the case for a nationwide intensive revision. Ultimately, genuine grievances in Bihar and elsewhere can be addressed at the ECI's decentralised statutory levels or in designated courts. To brand errors and omissions as conspiracies risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The Supreme Court recently noted a sense of "distrust" around SIR, but it is worth remembering that voting has additional safeguards against impersonation beyond the roll itself. For the ECI, answering questions repeatedly is part of the burden of its constitutional role.

Move Forward
Elections remain democracy's most reliable carriage in the absence of better alternatives. Guided by Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the Constitution firmly linked the right to vote with an independent Election Commission. As Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly, "The whole of the election machinery should be in the hands of a Central Election Commission... so that no injustice is done." Constitutional provisions and parliamentary law leave little room for deviation from a fair electoral process-enough to anchor trust, even as citizen vigilance is always welcome.

The storm over the SIR has run its course. Debate and protest have yielded some corrections and clarifications. It is now time to move forward, beyond partisan frames.

(The author is Ex-DG of ECI)