Nearly 3 lakh voters with ‘0’ house number in Bihar rolls, ECI claim on no complaints falls flat

Despite the Election Commission of India (ECI) demanding documents other than Aadhaar cards, voter ID and ration cards as proof of citizenship for enrolment in the voters list during the special intensive revision (SIR), it has emerged that nearly 2,92,048 voters in Bihar have been enrolled in the draft rolls with their house numbers showing as ‘0’, ‘00’ or ‘000’, and the ECI’s assertion that no political parties or agents have complained about deletions has been contradicted as several booth-level agents maintain they have submitted written complaints with varying degrees of success.

An official from the Bihar chief electoral office acknowledged that such anomalies occur because some voters do not provide their house numbers, yet the ECI’s online system still accepts the applications, resulting in the default entry being recorded as ‘0’, and added that efforts would be made to correct the entries.

The draft electoral rolls, published and uploaded on the ECI’s website on 1 August after the controversial SIR, revealed that the highest number of voters with such house numbers were concentrated in the Magadh and Patna regions, with Obra constituency in Aurangabad district recording 6,637 such entries, followed by Phulwari, Maner, Forbesganj, Danapur, Gopalganj, Patna Sahib, Hajipur, Darbhanga and Gaya Town, according to Newslaundry.

Seven of these constituencies, except Forbesganj, Hajipur and Darbhanga, fall within the Patna region, considered one of the state’s most developed areas, while Agiaon in Bhojpur district had the lowest such count at 47.

The anomalies were found in an analysis of over 7 crore electors across 87,898 polling booths in 235 of Bihar’s 243 assembly constituencies, although data from 2,184 booths in eight constituencies could not be examined because the ECI altered the voter roll format on its website to a non-machine-readable version, making automated analysis impossible, the Newslaundry report claimed.

The change came after allegations of “vote theft” in Karnataka’s Bengaluru region by opposition leaders earlier in August.

The ECI has said that the SIR was conducted to ensure that no eligible voter is left out and no ineligible voter is included, and that the process involved Booth Level Officers visiting every household to collect enumeration forms, which voters would later have to support with documentary proof of citizenship by 1 September.

The commission reported that enumeration forms had been collected from 91.6 per cent of electors, yet 65 lakh voters were removed from the rolls on the grounds of death, migration, duplication, or inability to be traced.

Opposition parties have criticised the SIR, warning of mass exclusion from voting, as local investigations have revealed that the names of genuine voters were missing without explanation in several constituencies.

In Arrah, a booth-level agent of the CPI(ML) Liberation found 174 voters missing from the draft rolls and faced difficulty in establishing the reasons for deletion because no official list of deletions was provided. In Bahadurpur in Darbhanga district, at least 20 voters were found removed from the draft list, leading to an investigation by district officials, during which it emerged that enumeration forms had not been collected from them, resulting in the suspension of the responsible booth officer for negligence.

Additional cases have been reported from other constituencies, with some political representatives alleging that dead voters’ names remain on the rolls while genuine voters’ names have been excluded.

The ECI, however, has claimed in press releases that no political parties or agents have filed complaints, although Bihar has over 1.6 lakh booth-level agents representing major parties such as the BJP, RJD, JD(U), Congress and CPI(ML) Liberation, and several have provided written complaints to district election authorities, according to The Wire report.

Since the publication of the draft rolls, 8,341 electors have filed claims and objections directly, yet the ECI has recorded zero complaints from political parties regarding deletions.

In practice, however, many affected voters have been asked to fill out Form 6, which is intended for new voter enrolment, meaning that even long-time voters whose names were excluded must apply afresh, making it nearly impossible to later determine how many additions are genuinely new and how many are reinstated names.