An unprecedented controversy has erupted over the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, with Vote for Democracy (VFD) and several civil society groups warning of serious legal, procedural, and statistical violations. Conducted between June 25 and July 26, the SIR has identified 65 lakh voters, 8.31% of Bihar’s electorate of 7.89 crore, as “untraceable,” “deceased,” “permanently shifted,” or “registered in multiple places”. However, the sheer opacity of the process and unexplained numerical surges in deletions have triggered widespread concern about the integrity of the exercise.
Since end July 25 and after August 1, when the ECI published the draft first list excluding a staggering 65 lakh voters, the VFD team of experts and legal analysts have scrutinised the ECI’s own data and come up with startlingly inconsistent hike periods of deletions.
VFD released this data today through a Facebook live event. The entire report and power point presentation may be viewed here.
Vote for Democracy: Key findings from the analysis of ECI data
- Legally unsanctioned process: The term Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has no legal or statutory basis under existing electoral laws. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 only permits summary, intensive, or partial revisions. The ECI not only devised a new nomenclature but also violated Rule 8 by introducing non-standard enumeration forms and failing to provide receipts or duplicate copies to electors, compromising basic procedural safeguards.
- Statistical irregularities and data “jugglery”: Between July 14 and July 25, deletion categories such as “deceased,” “permanently shifted,” and “untraceable” showed sudden, exponential jumps that defy logical or statistical explanation:
- Unprecedented one-day spike in “deceased” voters: A staggering 2, 11, 462 electors (18,66,869 – 16,55,407) are claimed to have been found dead over just one day, between July 21 and July 22, 2025.
- Mass constituency-level removals in over one day: Worse, 870 electors on an average per constituency have been removed over one day, between July 21 and July 22. This makes the electors removed per constituency in that period at 2,11,462. Is this part of a genuine clean-up process or a pre-determined mass deletion?
- Five-day surge in “deceased” category: During the last five days of the SIR process, July 21 to July 25, the ECI has magically raised the number of dead electors from 16,55,407 on July 21, 2025 to a significant 22 lakh dead voters, four days later, on July 25. Thus, we see a hike of deletions in this category at 5,44,593 in 243 constituencies (which is a figure that is 2,241 dead electors per constituency).
- Sharp three-day escalation in “permanently shifted” voters: The hike in the mass deletions under the head “permanently shifted” is too high to be digested and the same in the last three days is 15,24,769 for all the 243 constituencies, and this turns out to be 6,275 per constituency on an average. Thus, the last three days have been the most marked deletion days (!!!) for the ECI’s Bihar SIR process where 8,516 electors have been removed from each of the state’s 243 constituencies.
- Deletions exceeding forms processed: All this already points to what amounts to a jugglery in data science. Why? Because the huge surge in the number of “dead” and “permanently shifted” voters is almost double the number of the electors’ forms digitalised in those very hours! Between July 23 and July 25, the number of digitised electors increased from 7.17 crore to 7.23 crore. Concurrently, the total count of deceased and permanently shifted voters rose from 48 lakh to 57 lakh, an increase of approximately 9 lakh!
- Disappearance of “multiple registration” category: Another ECI-driven miracle is that in this same period i.e., July 23 to 25, there was not even a single such elector who exists in the “registered at more than one place” category! Observation: The ECI appeared to be in a hurry over the last days of the SIR exercise to complete the first phase of pre-determined and desired number of deletions.
Such anomalies, where deletions exceed even the number of forms received, suggest possible manipulation of data to meet a pre-decided quota of deletions.
- Opacity and aggregation of deletion data: On July 23, the ECI replaced category-wise reporting with “Merged Data”, collapsing separate categories (e.g., deceased, shifted, untraceable) into one opaque classification: “Electors not found at their addresses.” This intentional data obfuscation came just as deletion figures accelerated, reaching 65 lakh by July 27.
- Disproportionate impact in key districts: Deletion rates vary wildly across districts, with Gopalganj (15.10%), Purnia (12.08%), Kishanganj (11.82%), and Madhubani (10.44%) among the worst affected—well above the state average of 8.31%. These districts are known for marginalised populations, migrant workers, and minority communities, raising fears of targeted disenfranchisement.
- Democratic and legal concerns:
- The Supreme Court, in its July 29 hearing, refused to stay the publication of the draft rolls but cautioned that it would intervene if “mass exclusion” was proven.
- Petitioners, including ADR, have pointed out that the ECI has failed to publish names of those marked for deletion, denying voters the opportunity to file claims or objections.
- The burden of proof has effectively been shifted onto voters to defend their inclusion, a reversal of the ECI’s constitutional obligation to ensure due process.
Broader implications for electoral democracy
The ECI claims that no deletion occurs without a prior notice and hearing. However, with 65 lakh deletions across 243 constituencies, this would mean conducting an average of 26,748 hearings per constituency within a month—a logistical impossibility that casts serious doubt on procedural compliance.
Further, many of the categories used for deletions, such as “untraceable” or “permanently shifted”, are highly vulnerable to subjective assessment, especially given the scale and speed of the deletions. The introduction of new deletion categories mid-way, rapid statistical jumps, and the disappearance of disaggregated data suggest a process driven by pre-determined numerical targets, not genuine verification.
Call for transparency and legal scrutiny
Vote for Democracy (VFD) and allied experts and researchers are calling for the ECI to immediately release:
- The complete list of deleted voters with reasons for deletion.
- Documentary proof backing each deletion, as required by law.
- A clear breakdown of deletion categories per constituency.
With Supreme Court hearings set for August 12 and 13, the credibility of Bihar’s electoral process now hinges on whether these deletions withstand judicial scrutiny and public transparency. Anything less risks undermining the very foundation of the right to vote in India.
The experts involved with the VFD are Dr Pyara Lal Garg, Former Dean, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Panjab University, Chandigarh, MG Devasahayam, IAS (Retd), Convenor, Forum for Electoral Integrity & Coordinator, Citizens Commission on Elections, Madhav Deshpande, Computer Science Expert over four decades and a former consultant to the Obama administration. Teesta Setalvad & Dolphy D’Souza are Co-Convenors of Vote for Democracy[1]
The Power Point presentation may also be viewed here:
[1] Vote for Democracy (VFD) is a Maharashtra-level citizens’ platform of individuals and organisations formed in 2023 to ensure Voter registration, Voter Awareness, and a Hate-Free Poll where Accountability & Transparency is key. Teesta Setalvad and Dolphy D’Souza are Co-Convenors and for this report a slew of legal researchers and activists contributed to the final product, this Report.
Related:
ECI to SC: Voter ID insufficient for Bihar roll, defends citizenship verification power
Non-Electors Within Electors: ECI reports over 61 lakh potential exclusions