The ‘living dead' of democracy: Has EC failed Bihar?

India Today

3 hours ago

Birth certificate was among the 11 documents that citizens in Bihar were required to produce to prove their eligibility for inclusion in the voters' list under the Election Commission's (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR). For those seeking entry, the evidentiary bar was high. For those struck off, the bar was almost non-existent.Booth level officers (BLOs), the foot soldiers of the exercise, were not obliged to demand death certificates before declaring a voter deceased. Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, on August 17, effectively conceded as much, noting that BLOs and booth level agents (BLAs)—the latter nominated by political parties—had 'verified' those deemed dead, those listed in more than one booth, and those marked as migrated. The admission laid bare the EC's unequal yardsticks: exacting standards for inclusion, and casual corroboration, non-documentary validation for exclusion.advertisementWhile more than two million names have been erased as 'dead', it remains unclear whether a single one of those fatalities was formally confirmed. This asymmetry recently took a surreal form in New Delhi, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi sat across the table with seven residents of Bihar who, according to the draft rolls, no longer existed. Rahul remarked that it was the first time he had sipped tea 'with the dead'.The absurdity was complete: in Bihar, some of the living were marked as corpses while the truly departed lingered on the rolls, spectral citizens still capable of queuing patiently at polling stations in the upcoming assembly polls and thereafter.
When the EC last month released the draft roll of Bihar's 72.3 million electors—their enumeration forms digitised and uploaded with bureaucratic flourish—it left unanswered a simple question: how were the deletions verified?Roughly 700,000 names were struck off as duplicates, a claim that can be tested against records. But 2.2 million voters were consigned to the 'deceased' and 3.5 million declared 'migrated'. By what verifiable mechanism? In practice, BLOs purportedly often relied on hearsay, consulting neighbours of the voters or the village sarpanch in question in lieu of documents.The imbalance was glaring. Citizens seeking inclusion were asked for birth certificates, ration cards, school records—a parade of proofs. Yet for deletions, a nod from a neighbour was often enough. Death could be presumed, migration guessed. Under deadline pressure, did officials wield discretion as evidence?The Supreme Court's recent order, instructing the EC to publish the names of all 6.5 million voters deleted from the draft list, was not mere transparency but a rebuke. The officials have uploaded the list.The court has said Aadhaar, once dismissed by the EC, can be accepted for inclusion. By extension, it is likely to become the 12th document for those already on the draft rolls but lacking any of the other 11. Citizens wrongly marked 'dead' or 'migrated' may now file Form 6 and demand receipts from officials, who themselves face scrutiny.But the larger truth is this: the EC failed Bihar. The failure was not just technical but temporal. The SIR was announced in June, with deadlines collapsing by July 25 and claims and objection to be submitted by September 1.advertisementIn villages already disrupted by monsoon rains, officials were asked to verify millions of records in weeks. The task was Herculean, the deadline impossible. Errors were inevitable. The EC should have known. If a revision was necessary—and perhaps it was, for electoral rolls are never pristine—it should have been done months earlier, in quieter political weather.Instead, Bihar received an exercise in haste masquerading as rigour. Citizens were held to the strictest standards to prove they were alive. To declare them dead required little more than a shrug. The result is a list that satisfies neither law nor common sense.Bihar has long been caricatured as India's political laboratory. Once again, it has become a test case. If the EC stumbles here, in full public view, what might be happening in quieter corners of the Republic? Rahul's tea with 'the dead' in Delhi was theatre, but also metaphor. To sip with the 'living dead' was to confront the fragility of the rolls itself—the thin sheet of paper that separates democracy from disenfranchisement.advertisementChief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has said time remains for claims and objections. Any voter or party may challenge deletions until September 1. Yet one cannot help but ask: could this not have been done better, with less haste and more care? Until the final rolls are published, Bihar's democracy will remain haunted—not by its dead but by the living institutions sworn to protect the vote.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsMust Watch