• Adv. Rajiv Sharma

On numerous occasions in the past, Bihar has been on the forefront of many social and political movements in the country. It is the land where Mahatma Gandhi started his experiments with truth, non-violence, and Satyagraha. But despite its glorious legacy, Bihar remains the poorest state of India today with a per capita income of just Rs. 5500 per month. This is not surprising when we see that Bihar had to suffer 20 years of almost uninterrupted misrule by a corrupt, communal, and ‘vote chor’ BJP and its allies. Now, as the state braces for its assembly elections in November 2025 to elect a new pro-Bihar government, a highly unpopular BJP and JDU combine is relying upon the Election Commission of India (ECI) to steal the mandate for it.

In order to fulfil its nefarious designs, the Modi government directed the ECI to undertake a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar electoral rolls as late as in June 2025. The way, the first draft voter list was published by the ECI in August, wherein 65 lakh voters were arbitrarily deleted, without assigning any reason, it appeared that the plan was to delete nearly 2 crore inconvenient but eligible voters. Later, the Supreme Court tried to rationalize the process by issuing multiple directions to the ECI, but it continued to abuse its constitutional authority in order to manipulate the election process to steal the mandate for the BJP. It is no surprise that the final voter list published on September 30, 2025, is also full of serious anomalies like arbitrary addition of bogus voters, unwarranted deletions of genuine voters and other deliberate errors, aimed at vitiating the whole electoral process. Fortunately, the matter is still pending in the Apex Court, which is likely to take cognizance of the wrongdoings of the ECI.

The leader of opposition Shri Rahul Gandhi and the Congress Party’s empowered action group EAGLE, besides a group of investigative journalists like 'Reporters Collective' and activists like Yogendra Yadav have been relentlessly exposing the actions of the ECI aimed at subverting the constitution.

Shri Rahul Gandhi has been leading the fight against the ‘Vote Chori’. His painstaking efforts backed by incontrovertible evidence have made ‘Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhod’ a potent household slogan across the length and breadth of the country. Shri Rahul Gandhi addressed a power packed press conference on 07 August 2025, wherein he proved that 100250 votes were fake and bogus in Mahadevapura in Bengaluru Central constituency. Exposing the dangerous modus operandi of the ECI, Shri Rahul Gandhi stated that the ECI used five specific methods to manipulate voter lists. First, a single voter was registered at a number of places. Second, a large number of voters were listed at fake and non-existent addresses. Third, the bulk voters were registered at the same address. Fourth, a mismatched photo or no photo was attached on the voter list to hide identification. Fifth, form 6 was blatantly misused to ensure bogus deletion of eligible voters often using unrelated mobile numbers. On August 10, Congress shared over 30,000 illegal addresses (e.g., "House number 0" or just area names). Shri Rahul Gandhi later highlighted that the signatures of the BLOs were forged at many places, and while the names of dead voters appeared in the electoral rolls, the names of living voters were removed. This was also seen in Phulwari in Patna, where BLOs themselves faked the entries.

'The Reporters Collective' has also methodically unearthed lakhs of duplicate voters registered at fictitious addresses in the final voter lists published by the ECI on 30 September 2025. An analysis of the lists of all the 243 constituencies in Bihar shows that around 1.32 crore voters have been registered on dubious and non-existent addresses. Random voters from different families, castes, and communities have been wrongfully clubbed together under one fake address. This is apart from those who are homeless and whose house number was mentioned as 0. Further, more than 14.35 lakh voters are registered as duplicate voters in the final voter list. These voters have two different voter IDs but have the same names in the voter list, the same names of their relative, and an age difference of 0-5 years. In case of 3.42 lakh such duplicate voters, the age on both the voter IDs is exactly the same. In addition, there are thousands of voters who have at least three EPIC cards. In Pipra Constituency, 505 voters belonging to different families, castes, and communities are registered on a fake address. In booths 320 and 459 there, the voters from castes like Musahar, Manjhi, Brahmin, and Baniya are listed together at a non-existent house number 39. In the same constituency, 1512 voters are found to possess duplicate IDs with matching demographics. A 21-year-old Ankit Kumar appears twice in the voter list, at the same house number 111 with the same father’s name Vinod Ram, but at different booths. Pipra, Bagaha, and Motihari have over 80,000 bogus voters, which are listed at fake addresses, affecting about 8% of their combined electorate. While, in Dhaka constituency, the ECI has excluded nearly 80,000 eligible voters belonging to minority communities.

At some places, the dead voters are listed while some eligible living adults are arbitrarily deleted after declaring them dead. While on his visit to Bihar, Shri Rahul Gandhi met many such living people who were declared dead by the ECI.

In all the constituencies, about 16 lakh women are missing from the final list. The ratio of deleted Dalits, Tribals, women, and those from minority communities is much more than their actual ratio on the ground.

Further, an activist Yogendra Yadav recently wrote in ‘The Indian Express’ that the final voter list of Bihar contains more than 24000 unreadable gibberish names, about 5.3 lakh duplicate names, over 6000 invalid gender entries, over 2 lakh blank or invalid house numbers (discounting number zero) and over 51000 invalid relations mentioned in voter list. By no stretch of imagination, such a voter list would be called purified, and the claim of the ECI to this effect is simply laughable.

In addition, the adult population in Bihar is just above 8.22 crores. But the names of only 7.42 crore voters appear in the final voter list. This means that nearly 80 lakh voters, which is around 10% of the total votes, are missing from the voter list.

But like every dark cloud has a silver lining, the outcome of the SIR has brought some positive news for the country also. It has nailed the lies of PM Modi and the ECI, who were deliberately trying to stoke communal fears in the country. To do so, they have been putting forth a false narrative that SIR was undertaken to remove the infiltrators or the ‘guspathias’, who had come to Bihar from Bangladesh. In a press conference to announce publication of final voter list on 30 September 2025, the Chief Election Commissioner could not give the exact number of illegal migrants or ‘guspathias’ identified by the ECI during the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists in response to some pointed questions of the media. Obviously, no or negligible number of illegal migrants could be identified during the intensive survey. This has not only demolished the shameless lies and false propaganda of PM Modi on infiltrators but has also dented whatever is left of his fast falling credibility.

In the meantime, leader of opposition Shri Rahul Gandhi continues to provide evidence to establish that the ECI has been putting every possible hurdle in his efforts to expose the ‘vote chori’ in the country. He has asserted that in the modern era of technology, it is not difficult to detect duplicate or fake voters. He has demanded machine readable electoral rolls from the ECI, but they are well aware that once the ‘Vote Chori’ facilitated by it across the length and breadth of the country is exposed, it will be impossible for them and their political masters to escape punishment for murdering the democracy in the country. To save the ECI, the government is also amending the rules. It has already barred the candidates from getting CCTV footage of polling process. It has also made laws to grant immunity to the Election Commissioners from prosecution even if they are found committing criminal offences during their tenure.

The aforesaid dubious conduct of the BJP and ECI is making it increasingly clear that the exercise of SIR was undertaken for stealing elections for the BJP by including bogus voters and by excluding the Dalits, the tribals and the minorities and other voters who do not have trust in the communal, divisive and anti-constitution ideology of the BJP. The presence of duplicate voters, fake addresses, targeted deletions and other illegal manipulation in the polling process besides propagation of false narratives by the BJP and the ECI in connivance with each other threaten the very foundation of our country. Therefore, all the pro-democracy people of the country are looking forward to the next hearing in the apex court to see if the threat posed by the ECI to India’s democracy is neutralized.

The author is Chief Spokesperson, Chandigarh Pradesh Congress.