Bihar Elections: Opposition questions deletion of 65 lakh voters in Bihar; Which districts are most affected?

Around 65 lakh names have been deleted from Bihar’s voter list, raising concerns about transparency and fairness. Patna, Madhubani, and East Champaran are most affected. Women and young voters face higher deletions. The opposition alleges bias, urging the Election Commission to ensure no genuine voter is wrongly excluded.

Patna: Around 65 lakh names have been deleted from the state's voter list during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive conducted by the Election Commission ahead of the upcoming elections in Bihar.

These include voters who have permanently shifted, were found dead, were absent, or are already registered elsewhere. In this process, some names have also been deleted about which no clear information has been found.

Patna, Madhubani, and East Champaran are the most affected

Three districts of the state—Patna, Madhubani, and East Champaran—have seen the highest number of names deleted. A total of 10.63 lakh names have been deleted in these three districts, which is 16.35% of the total names deleted in the state.

Patna district has been the worst affected, where names of 3.95 lakh voters have been deleted, followed by Madhubani (3.42 lakh) and East Champaran (3.16 lakh).

Greater impact on women and young voters

A major area of ​​concern is that the number of women deleted from the voter list is higher than that of men. Also, voters in the age group of 18-40 years make up more than a third of the deleted voters. In Patna, 1.26 lakh voters under the age of 40 have been deleted, while in Madhubani, 1.44 lakh voters in this age group have been deleted from the list.

Political impact and opposition response

These three districts are among the most populous districts in the state and have a total of 36 assembly seats. In the 2020 assembly elections, the BJP-JDU alliance won 22 of these seats, while the opposition grand alliance got 14 seats.

The opposition has raised serious questions over the process and alleged that it lacks transparency. They say that deleting the names of voters on such a large scale is a matter of concern for the electoral process.

This process of revision of the voter list is necessary for electoral cleanliness, but deletion of names on such a large scale raises questions about the fairness of the electoral process. It will be important for the Election Commission to ensure that this process is completely transparent and the name of any legitimate voter is not deleted by mistake.