Bihar Voter Declared Dead in Draft Roll Surfaces Alive in Supreme Court
New Delhi: Forty-one-year-old Mintu Paswan, a resident of Bihar’s Ara assembly constituency in Bhojpur district was declared dead by the Election Commission in its ongoing ‘special intensive revision’ of the electoral rolls in the poll-bound state.
But on August 12, Paswan appeared in the Supreme Court, demonstrably alive.
Paswan was one of two people produced in court by psephologist and activist Yogendra Yadav, who is one of the petitioners challenging the ongoing exercise in Bihar, to show how electors have been wrongfully deleted by the poll body – something that points to large-scale exclusions.
Paswan, who works as a driver in Ara, said that he had filled the enumeration form and yet his name was struck off.
“I heard from people that my name has been struck off and that I was declared dead. I lodged a complaint online, and made a video. Now they are asking for bank documents, school certificates, and my Aadhaar card. While striking off my name they did not ask for any documents but to add my name they are asking for so many documents,” he said.
Paswan is among the 65 lakh voters who have been left out of the draft electoral roll published by the Election Commission on August 1. According to the Election Commission’s data, of the 65 lakhs who have been excluded, 22 lakh voters were declared deceased, 36 lakh permanently shifted or not found, and seven lakh duplicated in multiple places.
“While striking off my name they did not ask for any documents but to add my name they are asking for so many documents.”
Paswan said that it was only after he lodged a complaint that the Booth Level Officer (BLO) visited his house. Not just him, his brother who works in Kerala has also been declared dead.
“Election Commission is in a hurry. They should see if a person is dead or not. They should ask in the neighbourhood. If one person says that another has died, that does not mean he has died. I have voted in 2014, 2019, 2020 and 2024 elections. The BLO never came to my house. When my name was struck off, and complaint was lodged that is when BLO came to my house,” he said.
The move to produce Paswan in court was referred to as “drama” by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi who was appearing for the Election Commission. Dwivedi said that Yadav could help him in getting the rolls rectified instead of this “drama”. The bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi however said there may have been an “inadvertent error”, which could be rectified.
Yadav, referring to cases like Paswan’s, and the court’s earlier assurance that it would step in in cases of mass exclusion, said that such a situation had already begun.
“Mass exclusion has begun. Exclusion is much more than 65 lakhs. It’s bound to increase with SIR. It’s not a failure of implementation of SIR, it’s a design. Consequences will be the same wherever SIR is undertaken,” Yadav was quoted as saying in court by LiveLaw.
According to Shiv Prakash Ranjan, the CPI(ML) MLA from Agiaon assembly, who had brought Paswan to Delhi, there are at least four others in Ara who have been declared dead but they are alive.
“We were apprehensive that names of the poor would be struck off in this hurried exercise by the Election Commission. In Bhojpur district we went around with the old voter list and the new voter list to see whose names have been deleted. We made booth level teams in different villages. In Ara Vidhan Sabha constituency, four people’s names have been declared dead who are alive,” he said.
Ranjan said that while the exercise was meant to purify electoral rolls, the poor are being troubled and being made to search for documents, migrant workers who are away from their villages are being struck off the rolls.
“These people who have voted in successive elections are now being asked to fill Form 6 to include their names in the electoral roll. They will now become new voters even though they have already voted in several elections,” he said.
Meanwhile in the Supreme Court on August 12, petitioners said that the Election Commission cannot put the burden of proving citizenship on voters.
“This exercise should be stopped. We have sent 40 MPs to the Lok Sabha in 2024. They are not illegal, but voters have become illegal,” said Ranjan.
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