EC clarifies rules as Bihar voter roll drive starts today

The Election Commission made crucial clarifications with some rules eased-regarding its controversial "special intensive" voter verification drive in Bihar, allowing residents to submit forms based on self-declaration without documentary proof at the draft stage, as it sought to navigate massive logistical challenges and quell criticism that the exercise could lead to mass disenfranchisement.

- Abhishek Angad and Anirban Guha Roy

The commission's Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls will kick off on Sunday across Bihar's 38 districts, with over 78,000 booth-level officers conducting door-to-door surveys of the state's 77.2 million voters over the next month.

Officials within the Election Commission clarified that the exercise is "not a de-novo exercise meaning we are not creating a brand-new roll from scratch".

In one of the key accommodations, commission officials said residents can now submit enumeration forms without any documentary proof and still have their names included in the draft electoral roll.

"Even without documents, if the enumeration form is tickmarked, and has basic details, the name will be included in the draft. No names are being deleted at this stage," said a person aware of the matter within the Election Commission.

"Later, a complete hearing will be given to the people who don't have the documents." Earlier instructions stated that voters who failed to submit forms by July 25 would have their names struck from the draft roll the panel then did not specify if these could be forms without the documents.

Even mobile numbers and dates of birth are no longer "forced to be given," officials said.