Election Commission Defends Bihar Voter Roll Revision In Supreme Court, Says No Appeals Filed Over Name Deletions
The EC told the apex court that Bihar’s special Intensive Revision was fair, with no voter appeals over deletions and minimal correction requests filed.
By Sumit Saxena
Published : October 16, 2025 at 7:05 PM IST
New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday said the special intensive revision (SIR) in Bihar was an accurate exercise and not a single appeal has been filed by any voter against name deletion since the publication of the final electoral roll.
A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi noted the absence of political parties from the hearing due to rallies in the poll-bound state. The bench said it expects the poll body to look into typographical errors and other mistakes in the final list of Bihar electoral roll prepared after the SIR exercise as a responsible authority and come out with remedial measures.
The poll body has sought dismissal of pleas challenging the June 24 decision of the poll panel to conduct the Bihar SIR. The EC said after the determination of the objections and deletion of approximately 3.66 lakh individuals from the final electoral roll, no appeal has been reported as of now.
The EC said the petitioners have "ulterior motives" and are merely content with making "false allegations" to discredit the SIR exercise, the final electoral roll, and the commission for the electoral interest of political parties.
In an affidavit, the poll body said barring appointment of booth level agents (BLAs), the political parties and public-spirited individuals and organisations made no substantial contribution in ensuring that all the eligible electors were included in the final electoral roll.
"The EC not only appointed more than 90,000 BLOs, but also involved political parties and got BLAs appointed. The exercise was conducted on an H2H basis involving more than one visit. All relevant data was uploaded on the websites," it said.
The EC said this court also enabled the assistance of the state legal services authority, yet the number of objections and correction applications was minimal. "This indicates that the SIR exercise was accurate,” said the EC.
The EC pointed out that the petitioners NGO Association of Democratic Reforms and activist Yogendra Yadav have alleged that there is disproportionate exclusion of Muslims (25 per cent amongst 65 lakh excluded voters from the draft electoral roll, and 34 per cent amongst 3.66 lakh electors finally deleted) which was based on some software for name recognition, whose authenticity, accuracy or appropriateness cannot be commented upon.
"This communal approach is to be deprecated. The electoral rolls database does not capture any information on the religion of any elector," it said, adding these 65 lakhs deleted individuals were not included as they did not submit enumeration forms, being dead, having permanently shifted or having entries in more than one constituency.
During the hearing today, the apex court said it does not doubt that the EC will fulfil its responsibility and conduct the election smoothly. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, said that the EC should disclose how many voters were deleted and for what reason to ensure transparency in the exercise.
The apex court said the electoral roll will be frozen on October 17 in some constituencies, which are going into polls in the first phase and on October 20, which will go into polls in the second phase.
The poll body said documents filed by the petitioners themselves indicate that up till 2022, the number of voters was more than the projected total population and that justifies the exercise of SIR undertaken by the poll panel after a lapse of more than twenty-two years since the previous SIR conducted in 2003 in Bihar.
The apex court has scheduled the matter for further hearing on November 4.
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