The Election Commission of India worked for a long time of the month of ‘fixing’ the voter role of Bihar-a practice now known as ‘special intensive amendment’-has reached a large milestone earlier. All-new draft voter rolls are out, and the list, as required, has set the cat between pigeons. Less than 65 lakh names have been missing from the January 2025 list.

ECI tells us that these are the names of people who are either dead or have migrated permanently or are ‘duplicate’. But it will not provide the list separately, nor the draft rolls into a machine-elective format to cross-check for errors or perceived mischief.

Opposition parties are quite concerned-it was not long ago that ECI chaired another sleep-off-hand revision in voter rolls: where in Maharashtra, where 40 lakh new voters were added In place of five months (between the Lok Sabha elections in May 2024 and the state assembly elections in November the same year).

Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) Supreme Court filed a petitionThe urges that it directs the ECI to provide a booth-wise list of names removed, with the reasons for the deletion.

We talked to AdR founder Jagdeep s sixkar To understand what to do next. Edited Excerpt:

While the number of voters in Maharashtra and Karnataka increased considerably, it has fallen significantly in Bihar. How do you see it?

Only responsible for this can explain the reasons. But what I can see, the intention behind this practice seems suspicious.

What is the justification or system behind what the chaotic trick is like?

I don’t know what the method behind madness can be. But one thing is certain – a lot of feeling of electoral process in our country is disappearing.

At the moment, the most pressure question is about 65 million voters, whose names have been removed. Even you have demanded a complete list of names removed from the Supreme Court. What is really the secret of these 65 million voters? And if the list is made public, for what purpose will it work?

What will that purpose be, and what can be exposed, will only be clear after providing complete information. The Election Commission shares some data, but never in its entirety.

When the information is partial, it naturally causes doubt and creates more clarity. This cycle keeps repeating itself.

At least, people are worth knowing why their names were removed. In the partial list of 65 lakh voters released so far, there is no explanation – only one statement that the names have been removed. The Supreme Court asked us to produce 15 such examples of those who are alive but were declared dead and their names were closed.

The current list does not mention the causes of deletion. Closing a name is a legal process. A notice should be issued. The person concerned should be given a chance to answer. But we do not know how it was done. So we intend to ask: Who was noticed? What kind of notice was it? Which process was followed in cases marked as ‘deceased’?

Earlier, we were told how many voters were added to the role for the first time. This time, however, no such data has been provided. A miracle: Where have all new voters gone?

How do I know where they have gone? Only those responsible for disappearing them can answer it.

Usually, the voter list increases every year. Life expectancy is increasing, and the birth rate is still higher than the mortality rate. So naturally, new voters are added every year. In fact, it was celebrated in the past.

But now, it seems as if the dead are being celebrated.

I also heard that someone said the next day saying that voters used to choose the government; Now the government is choosing voters. Will the Supreme Court be asked to determine who is qualified as ‘true Indian’? And will the rest of us stand only and see?

Given the current data of the Election Commission, it seems as if the population of Bihar is shrinking.

Do we believe that 22-25 lakh people died in only six months, and have left another 37 lakh states?

If this is true, Bihar will soon be empty.

The ECI is justifying its actions citing the role of booth-tier agents (Blas). Is this essentially not firing from someone else’s shoulder?

It is legally suspicious to include the blass in this process. This increases serious concerns. Earlier, there were frequent allegations that political parties tried to manipulate voter lists by adding their own supporters. Handling this important responsibility to political parties is to outsource its own constitutional duty for ECI.

This delegation of power essentially breaks the link between the Election Commission and the citizen.

It is important to remember that the word ‘political party’ did not originally gave the data in the Indian Constitution. It was only formally recognized with the introduction of anti -feudal law.

Over the years, we have heard complaints that political parties were putting fake names in voters role. Now, the shocking thing is that they are being officially asked to do so.

Why does ECI do not provide machine-elective data? What is the difficulty?

should be no problem. Former Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar himself used to say that his guiding principles are ‘disclosure, disclosure, disclosure’. If this is true, why not continue it?

Now the situation is such that even the electoral rolls provided cannot be scanned. Place the paper on a scanner and it turns out empty – clearly, some mechanisms have been installed to prevent scanning. I fail to understand why there is so much fear of sharing information.

And yet, they claim to be transparent. Well, everyone can see ‘transparency’ on performance.

If everything was openly discussed and shown to the public, there would be no place for doubt.