Chidambaram poses seven questions to ECI on Bihar SIR

Senior Congress leader and former Union finance minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday challenged the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, raising queries about inclusions, exclusions and duplications in the voters' lists.

In a social media post, he said he was not accusing the ECI of any wrongdoing, but stressed that “the people of India — and Bihar — are entitled to answers to the following questions on the Bihar electoral rolls”.

“What is the estimate of the adult population of Bihar according to the government of India, what proportion of the adult population has been included in the Bihar electoral rolls, and is it 90.7 per cent?” he asked.

Further, Chidambaram questioned what had happened to the remaining 9.3 per cent: “What about the remaining 9.3 per cent of the adult population? Why are they not included in the electoral rolls? How many names in the electoral rolls are gibberish? Is the number approximately 24,000? How many house numbers in the electoral rolls are blank or obviously invalid? Is the number over 200,000?”

Turning to duplications, he questioned: “How many names included in the electoral rolls are double or duplicate entries? Is the number approximately 5,20,000?”

He concluded with a call to the poll body: “Will the ECI, in the interests of transparency and fairness, please answer the questions.”

Chidambaram’s demands came a day after his party accused the ECI of failing to publish the final list of deleted voters in Bihar, and claimed there were over 5 lakh duplicate entries in the final rolls. The Congress’ monitoring arm EAGLE (Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts) argued that the current revision process creates more doubt than clarity.

The ECI, meanwhile, has defended the exercise, asserting it will not exclude any eligible citizen from the voters’ list, while also removing names that are ineligible or erroneous. The poll body insists the revision is necessary to ensure the electoral roll is up to date and credible.

The timing of Chidambaram’s challenge is significant given the ongoing Supreme Court hearing on the Bihar SIR. Bihar is set to hold Assembly elections in two phases on 6 and 11 November, with votes to be counted on 14 November.