Bihar booth officials accept voter forms without documents, using discretion
BLOs are expected to verify the personal details of residents, upload information using a mobile app, and collect documents to support each entry. However, as revealed by India Today's field reporting, this process now largely hinges on the discretion of individual BLOs.DISCRETION OEVR DOCUMENTSA BLO from Hajipur told India Today, 'We were initially told not to take the form without documents. But now the directive is taking the form first, collect the document later if needed.'Another BLO in Muzaffarpur demonstrated the mobile app interface, showing that under the 'SIR' tab, they can scan and upload the name, date of birth, and photo of a resident, and submit the form without uploading any document. The app is OTP-verified through the BLO's credentials.
'Since we're locals and know most residents, we have the authority to verify whether someone is born here. Later, if there's an objection or the ERO seeks submissions, we'll ask for documents,' the BLO added.In Hajipur, a BLO Sahayak said, 'Until 2–3 days ago, Aadhaar numbers were not being accepted. We were unable to submit the form without the documents. But now, if a person is not in the 2003 roll and is yet to furnish the documents, we are still submitting his form with Aadhaar number, Name, Date of Birth, and Signature.'A BLO supervisor overseeing 10 booths clarified, 'This exercise is primarily meant to remove dead or duplicate voters. The detailed document check will happen after August 25 depending on further instructions.'Visual Proof and InconsistenciesadvertisementIndia Today recorded BLOs submitting forms using the mobile app without uploading documents. Some voters submitted Aadhaar numbers, even though the form lists it as optional. BLOs admitted that discretion is being exercised differently across locations. Some accept Aadhaar, others do not.
SUPREME COURT'S STANDHearing petitions seeking a stay on the process, the Supreme Court refused to halt the SIR but issued important observations. It emphasised that the revision must not result in voter exclusion, especially so close to elections.The court questioned the Election Commission's lack of consistency regarding acceptable documents, asking why Aadhaar, EPIC, or ration cards — widely held documents — are not being accepted in many cases. It also warned the EC not to overstep its mandate by venturing into citizenship verification, a domain under the Union Home Ministry.Three legal questions will be examined in future hearings:Does the Election Commission have the authority to carry out SIR in this form?Is the procedure consistent with electoral laws?Is the timing of the exercise, just before elections, appropriate and fair?advertisementThe court has directed the EC to submit a counter-affidavit by July 21. The next hearing is scheduled for July 28.GROUND REALITIES AND VOTER FEARSIn Muzaffarpur, a female BLO reported making four visits to some households where residents were hesitant to cooperate. 'They fear this is some form of process to keep them out. They are scared to submit any document,' she said.Still, other residents have been cooperating. BLOs in Hajipur were seen conducting surveys actively, despite harsh weather conditions. 'There's a lot of confusion, but the effort is to not leave anyone behind,' said a BLO who has been on duty for ten days. 'We're telling people: submit the form now. You can provide documents later if required.'BOTTOM LINEWhile the Special Intensive Revision is aimed at cleaning up Bihar's voter rolls, it is currently exposing glaring inconsistencies in how India's largest democratic database is managed. With no uniform rule on Aadhaar, wide discretion being exercised by BLOs, and document collection being postponed or skipped, the entire process now rests on the judgment — and training — of individual field officers.- EndsMust Watch
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Indian Express
19 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Bihar SIR: No objections filed by parties, says EC; on the ground, political workers say they raised red flags
In its daily statements since August 1, the Election Commission of India has been maintaining that none of the 1.6 lakh booth-level agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties has filed any claims and objections to the recently published draft electoral roll as part of Bihar's ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Yet, on the ground, the BLAs – political workers meant to be the eyes and ears of parties at the level of Assembly constituencies and booths – say they have been actively raising objections: from alleged duplication of voters to the presence of 'fake voters' and those whose names have been allegedly mistakenly deleted or declared dead in the draft rolls. The Indian Express spoke to BLAs across political parties – from the BJP's agents in Darbhanga, who are confident that the 'mool niwasi' won't be left out; to Ara in Bhojpur, where BLAs of the CPI- (ML-Liberation) say they have flagged nine cases of voters being inaccurately declared dead on the draft rolls; to a booth in Aurangabad, where the BLA says he is going door-to-door alerting the 122 voters in his booth whose names have been struck off the EC list. While EC rules say objections to the draft roll have to be submitted in the prescribed format – Form 6 for additions, Form 7 for deletions – along with a declaration, BLAs say that while they have brought the alleged inaccuracies to the notice of the authorities, it's for the EC to take action. Officials told The Indian Express that BLAs don't usually submit claims and objections in the format prescribed since they are required to present the evidence on oath. This is the same rule that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar cited on Sunday when asking Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to give an affidavit for his allegations of voter fraud in Karnataka. Under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, making a false declaration is an offence punishable by a jail term/fine. At a booth in Darbhanga's Bahadurpur Assembly constituency, BLA Krishna Bhagwan Jha of the BJP says he is yet to see the draft electoral roll published on August 1, but is not worried about genuine voters being left out of the rolls. 'Jo yahan ke mool niwasi hai, unke paas koi toh proof hoga (The original residents will have some proof),' he says, confidently. According to EC data, of the 1.60 lakh BLAs, the BJP, which is part of the ruling coalition, has the highest number (53,338), but even that does not cover all the 90,712 booths in the state. In another booth, in Darbhanga Assembly seat, BLA Lakshman Kumar of the BJP says he has submitted a letter to the District Magistrate, Kaushal Kumar, with names of 665 electors who allegedly have more than one Voter ID in the same constituency. Nearly all the electors on Lakshman's list are from the minority community. 'We have found that these 665 people have two, three and even four EPICs in some cases. Some are registered in the same booth multiple times, others are in different booths in the Vidhan Sabha,' he says. Lakshman says that when he submitted the complaint, he was asked to attach an affidavit too. 'I gave the complaint on my letterhead, as a BLA of the world's largest political party. I don't think an affidavit is required. We have identified these duplicates; now it is for the authorities to investigate and delete the names they find,' he says. The DM did not respond to The Indian Express's request for a comment. However, officials said, the complaint was being inquired into. Rajesh Choudhary, a BJP BLA in Hayaghat Assembly constituency, insists the SIR process has been smooth. 'There are some people whose names were not there or their documents were not available. We have been contacting them over the phone and asking them to send the documents over WhatsApp if they are not here. We then submit the forms to the BLO,' he says. Sapna Bharti, a BJP BLA in Darbhanga Assembly constituency, too, expresses confidence. 'There are many people whose names are left out, but we are making sure that they all complete the formalities in the next two-three days. We have helped them to get their caste or residence certificates made,' she says. With the Opposition joining forces against the SIR, BLAs of the RJD, Congress and the Left are going all out to bring the alleged irregularities to light. At Ara town, the district headquarters of Bhojpur, BLAs and functionaries of the CPI (ML-Liberation) say they have identified nine cases of voters being 'inaccurately' declared dead on the draft rolls. Among them is Mintu Paswan, one of seven such cases that Rahul Gandhi recently highlighted. The CPI (ML-Liberation) has a strong presence in Bhojpur, with the party's Sudama Prasad defeating former Union minister and senior BJP leader RK Singh from Ara Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 polls. The party had also won the adjoining Karakat Lok Sabha seat. At a booth in Dharhara in Ara, BLA Ritesh Sunilam of the CPI (ML-Liberation) says he has identified three voters, including Madan Prasad, a daily wager, who were 'inaccurately' declared dead and deleted from the draft roll. 'I am completely worthless now. At least I could vote until now; now I can't even do that,' says Prasad, a member of the Extremely Backward Class who has been out of work for some years. Sunilam tries to cheer him up. He asks for Prasad's Aadhaar card and one of the 11 EC-mandated documents and says he will help him apply as a fresh voter with Form 6. 'Baad mein (later),' says Prasad, brushing off the BLA. Sunilam says all the three voters in his booth who have been declared dead on the EC draft roll had voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Citing an instance of the same voter with three different names and EPIC numbers — Sonu Kumar Tiwari, Vinay CPI (ML-Liberation's) Kumar Tiwari and Vikas Kumar Tiwari, son of Krishnanamd Tiwari from Kudaria village, Booth Number-210) — Sanjay Kumar, state committee member of the party, says, 'When we visited Kudaria, we learnt that that the person's real name is Vinay Tiwari. We have complained to the BLO concerned.' On August 16, the Left party, one of the key allies of the RJD-led Opposition Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, called a district-level meeting of its functionaries to highlight discrepancies in the SIR and find ways to redress it by bringing the matter to the attention of the EC's Booth Level Officers (BLOs). The party's BLAs in Ara have raised many such objections – alleged duplication of voters at booths in the Tarari and Nokha Assembly segments; about 50 people at Khopira in the Ara Assembly segment listed as 'permanently shifted', when they had only migrated for work; and a case in Dehri Tola, Jagdishpur Assembly segment, where 76 people bearing the surname Choudhary (EBCs) got allegedly listed as Choubey (an upper-caste surname) in the draft roll. Functionaries of the CPI (ML-Liberation) say they have brought these 'irregularities' to the attention of the BLOs concerned. In another part of the state, at Aurangabad's Ward number 13, Sarvind Kumar, a BLA of the Congress, has a list of 122 voters whose names have been deleted from the voter list. 'People have been coming to my house to find out if their names have been struck off. Since it was getting crowded, I told them to go back home and now I am going to each of their homes, informing them that they are not on the draft rolls. That is the first step,' says Kumar. The ward has a sizeable population of Dalits and Muslims, besides upper-caste voters too. At the home of Dhananjariya Devi (45) and Ramesh Ram (50) – a Dalit couple who work as daily wagers – Kumar announces: 'Your name has been deleted from the voter list.' While Devi's name has been deleted citing that she wasn't 'present', her husband is shown on the draft rolls as having 'moved out of the state permanently'. Kumar tells the couple they will have to get their caste certificates made and that he would discuss the matter with Congress MLA Anand Shankar Singh. 'Don't worry. I will go with you to get the caste certificate made,' he says, before heading to another house.
Time of India
26 minutes ago
- Time of India
'Tried to shield untainted teachers': SC junks review pleas against order scrapping 25k Bengal school jobs; says selection process was vitiated and tainted beyond redemption
KOLKATA: Supreme Court has dismissed all review petitions against its April 3 order scrapping the 2016 recruitment of 25,734 school staffers, saying the selection process was "vitiated and tainted" beyond redemption. The Aug 5 order could be accessed on Tuesday. On Bengal govt's plea, the SC had allowed "untainted candidates" to continue as teachers till Dec 31 and directed the state to complete fresh recruitments to all vacant posts by then. The state has already issued notification and schedules for fresh recruitment in keeping with the SC-mandated timeline. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata | Gold Rates Today in Kolkata | Silver Rates Today in Kolkata The Bengal govt, state School Service Commission, a section of both 'tainted' and 'untainted' teachers, group C and group D staffers had filed review petitions against the apex court order but an SC bench of justices Sanjay Kumar and Satish Chandra Sharma dismissed all of them saying, "These review petitions which, in effect, seek a re-hearing of the entire matter on merits, therefore, do not deserve to be entertained as all relevant aspects have already been examined and considered comprehensively. " Tried to shield untainted to greatest extent possible: SC The SC bench said its April 3 order "was passed after hearing extensive and exhaustive arguments and upon considering all aspects, factual and legal". The judges reasoned that SSC's failure to retain original OMR sheets or at least their mirror copies to "cover up lapses and illegalities" made verification more difficult and led to the "inevitable conviction that the entire selection process was compromised". This is what had led to the selection panel being invalidated, the bench said. The SC added that it had tried to protect the interests of untainted candidates to the "greatest extent possible". "No doubt, invalidation of such untainted appointments would lead to heartburn and anguish, which the court was fully conscious of, but protecting the purity of the selection process is paramount and necessarily has to be given the highest priority," it said. It added, "The adverse remarks made against the authorities concerned, who were wholly and solely responsible for this entire imbroglio, adversely affecting the lives of thousands of candidates, untainted and tainted, were fully warranted and justified." Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area.
News18
27 minutes ago
- News18
'Data Manipulation': ICSSR Slams CSDS, To Issue Notice Over Misleading Maharashtra Poll Figures
ICSSR says CSDS undermined the Election Commission's credibility with false data on Maharashtra voter rolls, cites violation of funding norms The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) on Tuesday said it will issue a show-cause notice to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) over an erroneous claim made by Lokniti co-director Sanjay Kumar in a social media post, which alleged dramatic changes in voter numbers across four Maharashtra Assembly constituencies between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Kumar later retracted the post and issued a public apology, attributing the error to a data misreading. The ICSSR, which functions under the Ministry of Education and funds research in the social sciences, said in a statement that it had taken 'serious cognisance" of the incident. It described the episode as 'data manipulation" and said the institute had also published 'media stories based on biased interpretation" of the Election Commission of India's Sample Verification (SIR) exercise. 'ICSSR takes serious cognizance of the data manipulation by CSDS and its attempt to create a narrative with the intention of undermining the sanctity of the Election Commission of India. This is a gross violation of the Grant-in-Aid rules of ICSSR, and ICSSR shall issue a Show Cause Notice to the Institute," the council said in a post on X. It added that it held the Indian Constitution 'in highest esteem" and described the Election Commission as a 'high constitutional body which has been holding free and fair elections in the largest democracy of world for decades together." The Now-Deleted Post The controversy began after Kumar, a widely recognised psephologist, posted figures on X suggesting extreme discrepancies in voter numbers in Nashik West, Hingna, Ramtek, and Devlali between the two 2024 elections. According to his now-deleted posts: Nashik West Assembly had 3.28 lakh voters during the Lok Sabha polls, which allegedly increased by 1.55 lakh (47.38%) to 4.83 lakh in the Vidhan Sabha elections. Hingna Assembly's numbers rose from 3.15 lakh to 4.50 lakh — an increase of 1.36 lakh voters (43.08%). In contrast, Ramtek saw a decline from 4.66 lakh to 2.87 lakh — a drop of 1.80 lakh voters (38.63%). Devlali's count fell from 4.56 lakh to 2.88 lakh — a 1.68 lakh drop (36.84%). Kumar retracted the data the next day and posted an apology, writing: 'Error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS. The data in row was misread by our Data team. The tweet has since been removed. I had no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation." I sincerely apologize for the tweets posted regarding Maharashtra occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS. The data in row was misread by our Data tweet has since been removed.I had no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation.— Sanjay Kumar (@sanjaycsds) August 19, 2025 Despite the deletion, the incident has taken on political dimensions, especially because several opposition leaders had shared the figures online in support of their larger campaign against alleged voter roll discrepancies in Maharashtra. What The Official Data Says A News18 analysis of Election Commission of India data, released during the announcement of election schedules, showed that Maharashtra had 9.23 crore voters as of March 30, 2024. This rose to 9.63 crore by October 15, 2024, amounting to an increase of about 40 lakh voters. These figures included both new additions and deletions. The Lok Sabha elections in the state were held in five phases between April 19 and May 20, 2024. The Assembly polls were held later in November. According to ECI rules, the electoral roll for each election freezes on the date of the nomination notification, typically about a month before voting day, making such sharp changes in numbers between the two polls statistically implausible. Impact On The 'Vote Chori' Campaign The timing of the CSDS data controversy has intensified scrutiny of the Opposition's 'vote chori' (vote theft) narrative, led by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi. Gandhi has alleged that Maharashtra saw the addition of 39 lakh new voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, more than the adult population growth in the state during that time and higher than the total voter increase between 2019 and 2024. While the now-retracted CSDS figures were not the basis of Gandhi's campaign, they were cited by senior Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera in two posts on X, both of which have since been taken down. Gandhi officially launched the 'vote chori' campaign earlier this month, focusing on the need for electoral transparency and demanding machine-readable voter rolls. BJP, EC, and CEO Reactions Though the Maharashtra CEO has not issued an official statement on Kumar's apology, the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) posted a screenshot of the deleted post in a response to the apology. 'CSDS Sanjay Kumar apologised for the tweet posted regarding Maharashtra Assembly Elections… His data was quoted by many INC & Opposition leaders for questioning EC," the Bihar CEO wrote on X. BJP leaders, including IT Cell head Amit Malviya, have seized on the apology to counter the Opposition's allegations. Malviya accused Kumar and CSDS of feeding 'Congress's fake narrative on Maharashtra" without verifying data, saying this was not analysis but 'confirmation bias." The apology is in, and Sanjay Kumar is out. Incidentally, when was the last time this protégé of Yogendra Yadav ever got anything right? In all his projections in the run-up to every single election, the BJP is supposedly losing—and when the reverse happens, he turns up on TV… — Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) August 19, 2025 He also questioned the integrity of CSDS, calling for a deeper look at its funding sources, survey design, and past outputs. 'The very institution whose data Gandhi leaned on to defame the voters of Maharashtra has now admitted that its figures were wrong… Shameful," Malviya posted, adding that Gandhi should abandon his Bihar yatra and apologise to the people of India. top videos View all What's Next? The ICSSR's move marks an escalation in the controversy surrounding Sanjay Kumar's now-deleted social media post and its political fallout. While the council has cited a 'gross violation" of Grant-in-Aid rules, it has not yet detailed what specific consequences the CSDS may face. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk More Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from politics to crime and society. Stay informed with the latest India news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : election commission Maharashtra elections view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: August 20, 2025, 08:45 IST News india 'Data Manipulation': ICSSR Slams CSDS, To Issue Notice Over Misleading Maharashtra Poll Figures Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. 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