Latest news with #Aadhaars
The Hindu
14 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Bihar's Assembly Election 2025: Aadhaar-Linked Voter Revision, Caste Realignments, and Nitish Kumar's Waning Grip
Published : Jul 29, 2025 18:24 IST - 14 MINS READ As Bihar prepares for the Assembly election in 2025, the State finds itself at the centre of a contentious electoral revision exercise that critics argue could disenfranchise vulnerable communities. The Election Commission of India's demand for Aadhaar cards and other documents has raised questions about the timing and intent of the drive, particularly in districts with significant Muslim populations. Against this backdrop, the State's political landscape is also transforming, with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's influence waning after two decades in power, the BJP still unable to go it alone despite its national dominance, and new players like Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj party entering the fray. Ashish Ranjan, founder of the Data Action Lab for Emerging Societies, who has been conducting field research in Bihar for the past two months, speaks to Saba Naqvi about the data behind the electoral revision controversy, the unique caste dynamics that continue to shape Bihar's politics, and why the State remains distinct from the broader Hindutva wave sweeping north India. Edited excerpts: Explain the charge that Aadhaar holders exceed the actual population in certain districts, particularly areas where Muslims live. Is that true? Let's begin with the idea of electoral revision. In principle, this is the fundamental right and responsibility of the ECI. We revise the electoral roll from time to time. But the question is, is it a good time when the election is scheduled after two or three months? And the requirement of documents—the Aadhaar, which is second only to the passport. Bihar has only around 2 per cent passport holders. How many per cent have Aadhaar? According to the Aadhaar website, it's 86 per cent. There are a few districts which have more Aadhaar than the population of the 2011 census. Please remember, this census, which was last done in 2011 because this government has delayed doing a census, is the basis for population estimates. As other websites claim, there are a few districts in Bihar which have more than 100 per cent, including Patna. Purnia, Katihar, and Seemanchal have 120-186 per cent. But we must remember one thing—on what basis is this calculation made? The census was done in 2011, which is 14 years ago. There are no other institutions apart from the Census of India which have State-wide population statistics. But there are some institutions like the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai, the United Nations Population Fund, and a few research agencies which have projected the State-wise population of India. When you compare these two data sets—the projection of populations and the Aadhaar numbers—you will see the claim is not as per the data. As per the Aadhaar website, Purnia has 39.54 lakh Aadhaars, Katihar has 39.7 lakh, Araria 34.3 and Kishanganj has 21.26 lakh, which is more than the 2011 census. But the IIPS projected population based on the 2011 census for 2026. According to them, around 36 lakh population is projected for Araria. Aadhaar has 34.3 lakh, which is less than the projected population. Kishanganj has 22 lakh projected population. Aadhaar has 21.25 lakh. So your data analytics shows that the claim that Aadhaar cannot be accepted because people can get multiple Aadhaars exceeding population is false? Exactly. And also, these districts are being targeted because of the higher population of Muslims. Even if we assume the number is correct, how can you ensure this is only Muslims who have taken more? It's not Bihar only. Delhi has 106.43 per cent Aadhaar compared to population. Goa more than 100 per cent. Himachal Pradesh more than 100 per cent. Kerala has 104 per cent. Punjab has 101.57 per cent. Telangana has 100.97 per cent. Even Uttarakhand 99.69 per cent. In comparison to all these States, Bihar is only 86 per cent. Even Gujarat has more than Bihar—91 per cent Aadhaar. Bihar has 86 per cent. This is from the Aadhaar website. Also Read | Haryana and J&K elections: What's the deal? Why do you think the Election Commission is doing this? After being called out on Maharashtra and the matter going to court, they changed the rules. Is there an agenda where richer, more landed, upper caste people are more likely to vote for the BJP, while poorer people are less likely to vote for the BJP, whose national vote has never crossed 36-37 per cent? Is there a conspiracy or bureaucratic overreach? I won't go into conspiracy because there could be many kinds. I work on data. Two interesting points. One, whether the ECI should have done this exercise after Maharashtra. In principle, they have the right and responsibilities. The question is timing and timeline. The Maharashtra election happened in October 2024. The ECI announced this in June 2024. So it was around nine months before. They had enough time. Why did they start in June only, why suddenly? But two things we need to mention. What is the role of the ECI in making a list of eligible voters? Go back 75 years. When India became independent, there were only 20 per cent of the population who were in the electorate because it was based on exclusion—property, your role in society. Poor, illiterate women were excluded from the voter list. India became independent, and the government announced universal franchise for citizens above 21 years. Later, Rajiv Gandhi reduced it to 18 years. The Constituent Assembly debates and role given to the ECI was to make the electoral roll more inclusive. Challenges were to include more and more eligible voters. The idea was inclusion. Before the 1951-52 elections, they came to an electoral roll which had 173 million population, around 17 crore, which was 49 per cent of the total population, unlike 20 per cent pre-Independence. Now the ECI is doing the opposite to their original direction. They are excluding. They are asking you to prove that you are a voter. This is not the right way. You had eight to nine months. In a State like Bihar, where the ECI already claims around 25-20 per cent of the population are migrants. Bihar is the only State in the Hindi belt where the BJP has not been able to directly rule. It needed a wire-puller like Nitish Kumar. Nitish is in decline. Then there's Prashant Kishor creating the new party Jan Suraaj. Chirag Paswan is being more ambitious. Four unknowns besides the voterless revision. Let's discuss Nitish Kumar's future. Three things are very unique. Bihar is still the State where the BJP, despite their dominance in the Hindi belt, has not been able to capture and still doesn't have the courage to go alone. This is the only State where they don't have courage despite the deteriorating health of Nitish Kumar. Second, Bihar is unique—in the last 35 years there is no new upper caste leader. You may see many other States have upper caste leaders but Bihar is still an OBC-dominated State. Old socialist leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan have already died. Lalu ji is also not in good health, and Nitish Kumar, although still the Chief Ministerial face for the NDA government. Even the 2025 election will be the last election for all these stalwarts. A new kind of politics will emerge in Bihar post-2025. The BJP does not have the courage to go alone despite having a good base. There is a good chunk of the population in Bihar who still feel that if the BJP comes to power, there would be Agra-Pichhra—forward versus backwards. People from backwards communities are not confident enough to have a BJP Chief Minister, a full-fledged BJP. Do you agree Nitish Kumar is in decline? I agree that Nitish Kumar is declining due to two forces. One is age. Second, this initiative could harm Nitish Kumar's voters more than any other party. Who is the core voter of Nitish Kumar? Women. Women vote in greater support of Nitish Kumar. Within the NDA and overall, the RJD has the plus point of the MY equation, which is around 32 per cent of the population. So they are in very good shape. Within the NDA, Nitish Kumar's core voters are the EBC and women. This initiative will target or eliminate more women voters than men. The reason is intrastate migration due to marriage and other things. They have difficulties in finding parents' birth certificates and other residential proof. Also, they are more economically poor than other categories. EBC has traditionally been a lower-income group, mostly, and also Dalits. For viewers unfamiliar—Nitish Kumar created categories called extremely backward caste (EBC) and Mahadalit. He called for a caste census in Bihar. Nitish came to power in 2005-2007. He did two important things: created the Mahadalit Commission and EBC. The major thing he did was initiate reservations for EBC and women in panchayati raj elections, local body elections, which empowered EBC. They are his core support base apart from his own community, Kurmis, and Kushwahas. Nitish is declining. He has been in power for the last 20 years, and his health is not in good condition today. The BJP has a difficulty—all problems lie in the fact that they have not been able to cultivate State-level leadership in Bihar. Bihar is one State which has been seeing a personality cult. Regional parties have been based on personality cult—first 15 years Lalu Yadav, then Nitish Kumar. The last single-party government in Bihar was in 1995 under Lalu Prasad Yadav. Nitish has never won a simple majority. He's the perfect coalition figure. Yes, he is the perfect coalition figure. It's credit to Nitish—he is the single most leader whose party has a coalition of castes. Nitish gets Muslim votes also, a little, but across all caste communities he can find support. Women have core strength. The second thing is the dire state of employment and economic decline of Bihar. There is a large migrant population with poor education and employment opportunities. Although in the last five years, they claimed they provided more than five lakh government jobs. If you go to Bihar and see posters of Nitish, the claim will be around nine lakh jobs in the last five years. The same Nitish who was saying in 2020, 'Where will this number come from?' Recently, the Prime Minister visited Motihari and there was a plan to generate around one crore employment opportunities. In south Bihar, where I've travelled, Bihar doesn't have urban hubs like UP. It's a highly rural State. There's a crisis in agriculture. Bihar's feudalism was more brutal than UP's. It came under the permanent settlement of the British. It had big zamindars. Different history. The percentage of the upper caste is also less than UP. But jobs—that's why Bihar has so many migrants. Since the 1995 Mandal election which Lalu won, he was the last to hold a simple majority. Even today, the RJD is the single largest party. Now you have Prashant Kishor. What are his chances? Bihar has only 12 per cent urban population according to the 2011 census. Almost the lowest in India. Look at UP—much higher. Bihar has a lot of handloom, handicraft clusters. The source of money is very less in Bihar internally than any other State. Two important points. The RJD has a good chunk of votes. They are in a dominant position with 23 per cent votes. The only problem—unless they add some EBC voters or some Dalit caste voters, I don't think upper castes will come to the RJD in the BJP dominance era. It's EBC, basically lower EBC. These are populations like Nonia, Tatma-Tati, they are still lacking representation. Bihar is one State where people are looking for representation. Who is going to represent me? Who is going to represent our community? There are lower EBC which have nothing. Recently when I was in Bihar in April, there was a Pan Sammelan. Pan is a community which has come to the region. Tatma-Tati, which is around 2 per cent of the State population according to the Bihar caste survey 2023, they were in SC. Nitish included them in SC, but a recent Supreme Court decision excluded them from SC. There was huge protest. People from that community said, 'If we had representation, they might have spoken in Parliament or Assembly.' There are these communities—it's usually called Pachpania in Bihar. Around 55 communities. Is Hindutva a factor in Bihar? We can't say no. But Bihar is still less Hindutva-oriented than other States. In the parliamentary election, the NDA has an edge, but it's not a phenomenon which occurred in 2014. Even if you see the past, only the 2004 Lok Sabha election, apart from this, in the last 30 years, you will see that the NDA has more MPs than the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar in the parliamentary election. But when it comes to Assembly—look at the 2015 Assembly election, despite the Modi wave at the national level, it was arithmetic when Lalu and Nitish combined. Also Read | Dalit voters, a decisive force There's been crime in Bihar lately. How will the BJP's narrative handle the law and order problem? I'll give you an example. Three days back the PM was in Motihari and look at his speech—he did not use 'jungle raj' unlike his previous speeches. Nitish has three USPs. One is law and order. Second was infrastructure development like roads, electricity poles, overbridges. Third, he literally empowered women from schools to jobs. But law and order, which is a huge USP of Nitish, is in question right now. I have a theory that Bihar is a giant panchayat. Every seat will have one influential caste leader, depending on caste demographics, one strongman,and one rich property-owning person. One gets a BJP-NDA ticket, one gets an RJD ticket. Prashant has the resources to pick the third influential person. Could he give tickets to winnable candidates without having a grassroots party? I agree with your point. He could give tickets to rich candidates also. The answer is in three points. Bihar is still a State where around 20 per cent votes are still a non-dominant force. The Mahagathbandhan and NDA managed to get 75-80 per cent votes. There are more than 20 per cent votes left behind the NDA and Mahagathbandhan. More possibilities for who will catch this. Second, I appreciate Prashant Kishor's initiative that he has been touring the State, trying to get the best chance for this election. Now come to numbers—in all States, at the competitive level of votes, the winning threshold is 40 per cent. Since the 1995 election, it was just 29 per cent vote the Janata Dal got and they got full majority. Now it's not possible. You still need 40 per cent. Last time it was 37 per cent vote share to both the NDA and INDIA, the victory margin was very less. So 20 per cent vote is remaining, which they are looking for a different thing. Unless Prashant Kishor could harm the NDA and Mahagathbandhan significantly, not minorly—even if the election gets triangular, you still need more than 30 per cent votes. I agree Prashant Kishor could harm some seats to the NDA and Mahagathbandhan. But on an individual level, I still don't think in Bihar, a State where voters are static and have been giving consent to parties continuously, it's still a very tough task where they will get votes in double digits. People have been travelling there for two months. What do people expect from the election beyond voting? Bihar is a State where there is not much demand from people. They are still—it might be due to the geographical region, because they have been facing floods, droughts every year. They are poor because landholding capacity is very less. So they might have been struggling themselves. They're still not thinking that the State has a responsibility to give them sufficient material. Politically, they are very much charged, but still, they are not very demanding. They are more focused on representation, caste representation or community representation. Because they think that they can raise their voice to their representative. That's the minimal thing they are asking. Being a strategist and getting sufficient number of votes to win an election are two very different things. Prashant Kishor has potential. Post-2025 might have a chance because all Bihar elections in 2025 will be focused on and only on Nitish Kumar. For me, Bihar would be more interesting between 2025 to 2030 where Nitish will be in decline. Most of his MLAs might go to the NDA. But voters, Nitish voters, which is around 15-16 per cent—whether Prashant Kishor, whether Congress, whether RJD or whether BJP, all are looking for that vote share. If you were to make a guess—yes, I know it's not a fair question—who will be the next Chief Minister of Bihar? On numbers, I don't think Nitish Kumar will continue as Chief Minister. Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.
Time of India
15-07-2025
- Time of India
2 held for creating fake Aadhaar, lens on terror links
Kolkata: The Bengal STF has arrested owners of a mobile shop on Birbhum for allegedly creating fake Aadhaar cards, using forged documents, in exchange for money. Sheikh Miraj and Abdul Quddus, alias Sheikh Munna, were rounded up from Sattor in Parui on Sunday. An STF officer said they were investigating their possible links with Bangladeshi terror agencies, given that two arrested JMB men—Saab Sheikh alias Saab Rabbi, also an Ansarullah Bangla Team terror cell member—frequented Sattor. "Miraj and Munna might have been helping the Pakistani spy network, with fake Aadhaars being used to get Indian SIMs," said the officer. The two were presented in the Bidhannagar court on Monday and sent to seven-day police custody. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata "The STF dismantled the well-organized, inter-state syndicate that forged govt documents. A case has been started at the STF (Headquarters) Police Station under the relevant sections of BNS, IT Act, the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial And Other Subsidies, Benefits And Services) Act and the Foreigners Act," said SP (Operations) Indrajit Basu.
Time of India
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Process to obtain Aadhaar for adults now much tougher
NEW DELHI: While Aadhaar was conceived as an identity proof, and not as proof of citizenship, allowing onboarding without real scrutiny, recent moves have meant that only verified adults can enrol for the unique ID. Besides, the Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI ) is going to tap the online database for passport, ration cards, and birth and matriculation certificates in the future for enrolment of adults and also for updates to ensure that Aadhaar remains foolproof. While Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act states that it is not evidence of citizenship or domicile, the new tools are seeking to ensure only citizens get the unique number. Over the last 15 years, over 140 crore Aadhaars have been generated, including for those who have died, and there is near adult saturation. With infants also now getting Aadhaar soon after birth, govt has decided to tighten the norms for new adult registrations. To thwart attempts by illegal immigrants to get the unique ID based on forged or fake documents, for the last couple of years, the onus has been on states to verify credentials and that Aadhaar is only issued after rigorous checks through a state portal. In the past, there were concerns over illegal immigrants getting Aadhaar and then using it for other purposes, including other IDs. "It is going to be difficult for any illegal immigrant to now get Aadhaar," argued an official, indicating a shift from the relaxed, if existent at all, rules of enrolment. Sources said that even if illegal immigrants use Aadhaar to clear the SIR of electoral rolls, there is little possibility of new ones being able to use that as the launchpad for acquiring documents, and most crucially, citizenship. A new tool developed by UIDAI is also going to put a second layer of check for updates as well as enrolments by tapping into documents available online, such as driving licenses, PAN, MNREGS details, and going forward, things like electricity bill. These documents are also in line with the prescriptions for centralized KYC, and ensure a homogenous identity.
Time of India
03-07-2025
- Time of India
Cops crack 1.5cr land grab with Aadhaar fingerprints
T'puram: The fingerprints on Aadhaar cards and the mobile numbers linked to them helped trace the accused who snatched a property worth Rs 1.5 crore at Kowdiar by forging documents and impersonating the original owner. Police arrested Merin Jacob (27) of Puthu Parambil near Manacaud near Punalur and Vasantha (76) of Cheenivila Palakkad Veedu near Maruthoor at Karakulam. Vasantha posed as Dora Asariya Crips, the original owner of the land, and Merin as her step-daughter. Vasantha registered the property in Merin's name and she sold it for Rs 1.5 crore. The probe team, however, suspects the involvement of a larger network behind the crime as they feel two women alone cannot organise a crime of such magnitude. The accused forged all documents related to the land and Dora's identity card to snatch the land. The fraud came to light when a relative of Dora visited the village office to pay land tax and discovered that the land was sold and someone else was paying the tax. A case was registered soon and the police identified the property's new owner. He claimed he had bought the land by paying the money to Merin, who claimed to be Dora's step-daughter. The new owner also claimed that Dora was with Merin when the land was registered in his name. "When we examined the registration details at the sub-registrar office, we obtained the thumb impressions in the register and copies of the Aadhaar cards. The accused created two fake Aadhaar cards, in the names of Dora and Merin. However, the Aadhaar numbers in the cards belonged to the original Aadhaar cards of Vasantha and Merin, and the mobile numbers linked to the Aadhaar cards were also the same. The thumb impressions in the Aadhaars and the register at the sub-registrar office matched, and using the mobile number, police soon found the address of the accused. They were soon taken into custody, and arrests were recorded," said the probe team.
