Over 8.3 Lakh Voters Missing in a Single Day During Bihar Electoral Roll Revision
New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) today released data revealing a dramatic overnight surge in electors classified as deceased or permanently shifted in Bihar.
With just three days left before the July 25 deadline for its massive and controversial voter re-verification drive, the figures show that 8,37,262 voters were added to the “not found at their addresses” category in a single day.
This development raises serious questions about the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, as it appears to directly contradict the findings of a comprehensive electoral roll clean-up completed just six months ago.
According to the EC’s press note issued Tuesday (July 22), the total number of “electors not found” jumped from 43.93 lakh on July 21 to 52.30 lakh on July 22.
The number of reportedly deceased electors increased by 2,11,462 to a new total of 18.66 lakh. Simultaneously, the count of electors marked as “permanently shifted” grew by 6,25,800 to reach 26.01 lakh.
This massive re-categorisation of voters was not matched by corresponding fieldwork. The EC’s own data table shows that its booth-level officers collected a mere 884 new enumeration forms during the same 24-hour window, suggesting the surge is a result of large-scale data reconciliation rather than new, on-ground verification.
While on-the-ground verification relies on field officers physically visiting voters, data reconciliation is an administrative process where different lists are compared in an office to flag potential errors.
The sudden appearance of these large numbers creates a paradox. The EC had just concluded a special summary revision for Bihar’s nearly 7.9 crore electors in January this year. An investigation by The Reporters’ Collective found that this exercise was not only considered robust but that the TRC‘s own metrics proved it.
The report noted that the statistical “health” of the January roll showed no anomalous trends when compared to the final rolls of the previous four years.
Furthermore, the January revision had already accounted for migration, identifying and processing 1.91 lakh shifted voters. The EC’s current claim of having now found 26.01 lakh permanently shifted electors just months later implies that over 24 lakh voters migrated out of their constituencies in the last six months without being captured – a figure that strains credulity.
A senior official involved in the January exercise was quoted in the TRC report confirming the roll’s integrity, stating, “I cannot say that we found any [anomalies] at the entire state level in the exercise concluded in January 2025.”
Tuesday’s data also reveals a significant overnight shift in the task assigned to Bihar’s political parties.
On Monday, the EC announced it had asked 12 major parties to help locate 73.55 lakh voters. However, in its press release today, the EC stated it has now shared “detailed lists of the 21.36 lakh electors whose Forms have not been received so far and also of the nearly 52.30 lakh electors who are reportedly deceased or permanently shifted or have enrolled at multiple places.”
This redefines the parties’ role, shifting their focus from primarily collecting forms to also verifying the status of over 52 lakh voters flagged by the EC’s internal data.
With the deadline looming, the EC appears to be shifting from on-ground verification to administrative data reconciliation and reliance on political machinery to close the significant gaps in its exercise.
The final draft electoral roll, set to be published on August 1, will reveal the consequences of this chaotic and contested process for lakhs of Bihar’s voters.
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