New Delhi / Patna — The Election Commission has submitted its affidavit in the Supreme Court regarding the SIR (Summary Revision) process in Bihar’s voter list update. The commission accused petitioners of using this issue to mislead the court and disrupt the ongoing election process.
The commission clarified that the petitioners aim to derail and hinder the SIR procedure and described the data cited in their affidavits as misleading and inaccurate. Furthermore, the commission warned that these efforts are not limited to Bihar alone but aim to obstruct the SIR process in other states as well.
Targeting activist Yogendra Yadav, the commission said he relied on media reports and self-created charts not part of his sworn affidavit. The commission called this a distortion of figures intended to portray a mass deletion of names from voter lists.
The commission also disputed the reliability of the 2011 census-based population estimates as a valid measure of the voter list’s accuracy. Regarding claims of disproportionate removal of Muslim voters, the commission termed such allegations “communal and unwarranted,” emphasizing that no religious data is collected during the process.
The affidavit detailed that the previous voter list had 78.9 million voters, out of which 72.4 million submitted enumeration forms, while 6.5 million did not. Among these, 2.2 million were found deceased, 3.6 million permanently relocated, and 700,000 registered elsewhere. Subsequently, 366,000 names were removed after due notice and hearings, carried out under detailed orders by EROs and AEROs.
The commission also addressed complaints of “gibberish” or incorrect entries, attributing them to errors in Hindi translation software, while affirming the accuracy of English entries verified by BLOs.
Finally, the commission emphasized that no new markings were made during SIR 2025, whose sole purpose was voter list purification. The final voter list was published on September 30, 2025, and all pending petitions are now considered ineffective.
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