The devil in Bihar’s final electoral rolls

On 30 September 2025, the Election Commission of India published the final electoral rolls for Bihar, which now has 7.42 crore names — compared to 7.24 crore in the draft rolls published on 1 August. Since all the Opposition noise was about the alleged malafide deletions, the ECI may argue that the final list has only 3.66 lakh deletions. This is compared to the draft list, remember; we shouldn’t fall for that and focus on how many adults eligible to vote are on the list.

When the ECI announced the month-long exercise on 24 June 2025, there were 7.89 crore voters on the Bihar rolls, as per summary revision figures published in January 2025 — nearly 30 lakh short of the state’s projected adult population of 8.18 crore. In other words, 96.5 per cent of the state’s adult population — hence eligible to vote — was enrolled in the voter list as of January 2025. That percentage, as per the final rolls, is down to 90.7 per cent! A marginal improvement from the 88.7 per cent after the draft rolls, but we are still talking about 76 lakh eligible people who won’t be able to vote.

As per the ECI, the 7.42 crore names on the final rolls include 21.53 lakh additions. Note that if these new names had been added to the list of eligible voters in January 2025, the number of voters (minus the dubious largescale deletions) would have been 8.11 crore — far closer to the state’s projected adult population of 8.18 crore. It would have translated to a 99 per cent enrolment, which might have been something for the ECI to crow about.

That is, for an ECI that played true to its mandate to push for maximum inclusion.

For additional context, the national average enrolment is 99 per cent.

The ECI release makes no mention of the enrolment ratio or the gender ratio, nor even objections received and accepted, nor detailed figures of constituency-wise deletions due to death, duplication or migration.

Incidentally, all this data was made public in January 2025 by the Bihar CEO. Why has it been withheld in the September update?

Here’s another glaring anomaly: the ECI received 16.56 lakh Form 6 applications for new voter registration and 36,475 objections against deletions — that’s a total of 16.92 lakh. Yet, it reports adding 21.53 lakh new voters. Even if all objections were accepted, additions shouldn’t exceed 16.92 lakh. How, then, did the Commission add 21.53 lakh new voters?!

Who are these ghost-voters added without ever applying for inclusion?

About the deletions, the ECI had said no voter would be deleted without a formal ‘spoken order’ by an electoral officer, and only after an inquiry and a fair opportunity to respond.

Were deleted voters given a fair hearing? What is a formal ‘spoken order’, anyway? We’ll never find out.

Weeding out ‘infiltrators’ and ‘illegal migrants’ was cited as the primary objective of the SIR (special intensive revision) exercise.

Activist and former psephologist Yogendra Yadav points out that the ECI’s website registers receipt of 987 complaints for deletion of foreign nationals. Judging by their names, only 200 of the 987 ‘foreigners’ were Muslims.

Bizarrely, over 700 of these complaints were submitted by the voters themselves! How likely is it, asks Yadav, that voters will voluntarily inform the ECI of their ‘foreign’ status, and ask that their names be deleted?

As per NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data for 2023, released on 29 September, Bihar reported just five cases pertaining to offences under the Immigration and Foreigners’ Act and the Passport Act. In 2019, Parliament was informed that the government had identified three infiltrators. In 2022, there were three cases and in 2021 just one.

Yet, ahead of every election, the bogey of mass infiltration resurfaces, fuelled by the prime minister’s dark warnings of demographic change in border areas.

Why is the BJP handling Nitish with kid gloves?

When Nitish Kumar broke ranks in 2022 to form the government with the RJD, Congress and Left parties, Amit Shah declared that the NDA’s doors were closed for him forever.

Yet, even when Nitish Kumar hosted the first formal meeting of the INDIA bloc in Patna in 2023 and attended subsequent meetings in Bengaluru and Mumbai, the BJP quietly kept its back channel open. When he switched back to the NDA in January 2024, the BJP welcomed him with open arms.

Nitish Kumar’s health is failing and, by all accounts, this once-crafty leader is not able to keep up any more with the shenanigans in his own party. Yet, everyone in the JD(U)–BJP alliance knows that only Nitish can pull the state’s crucial EBC vote. It is for this reason that, despite his poor health and diminished stature, BJP leaders have repeatedly said they will contest the upcoming elections under the leadership of Nitish Kumar.

It is also reliably learnt that the BJP and JD(U) have agreed — though not yet announced — that they shall contest a 100-odd seats each.

Apart from being a potential magnet for the state’s EBC communities, Nitish is also believed to have the support of the state’s women voters. He has nurtured both these constituencies for years, championing reservations for the EBCs, who comprise 36 per cent of the state’s population, and wooing women voters via policies like prohibition.

While they are fragmented and not known to vote en bloc, the EBCs have a presence across the state and their vote matters in practically all constituencies. The BJP has no credible EBC face of its own, and it knows that the Opposition is making a spirited pitch for that vote, as seen in the INDIA bloc’s 10-point ‘Atipichhda Sankalp Patra’, released on 24 September at the CWC meet in Patna.

With the JD(U)’s post-poll survival uncertain, the party needs the BJP more than ever. Both parties have a serious dearth of candidates who can win on their own steam. They need all the money and muscle the BJP–RSS can provide. Already imploding, the JD(U) may have no option but to play second fiddle to the BJP.

The fact that the BJP enjoys a cozy relationship with the JD(U)’s two seniormost leaders — national working president Sanjay Jha and union minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan Singh —only helps its cause.

Jha, a postgraduate from JNU, joined the JD(U) way back in 2014 at the behest of Arun Jaitley, who enjoyed a special rapport with Nitish Kumar from their days in the Vajpayee-led NDA government.

Lalan Singh, who was eased out by Nitish Kumar as JD(U) national president in December 2023, is known to be close to the BJP.

The BJP and JD(U) are friends in need; wait till after the elections to find out if they are friends indeed.