Over 71% Dalit Voters Fear Losing Their Vote in Bihar SIR: Survey
New Delhi: Over 71% of voters from the Dalit community in Bihar have said that they fear losing their vote in the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls according to a new survey released ahead of assembly elections in the state.
Despite their fears of disenfranchisement, the survey also found that 51.22% of Dalit voters have faith in the Election Commission (EC) while 27.42% do not.
The survey was conducted between June 10 and July 4 by the National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations (NACDAOR) – an apex body of Dalit organisations in India. The survey included 18,581 samples from Scheduled Caste (SC) communities across the state. However, the question on fear of disenfranchisement as a consequence of the Bihar SIR was added only after the exercise was announced on June 24 and 8,500 samples were gathered on it.
The survey results show that of those surveyed, 5,983 (71.55%) said that they fear losing their vote due to the ongoing exercise in the state, 1,959 (23.43%) said that they do not have this fear and 419 (5.01%) said that they do not have an opinion on the exercise.
On the question of whether they trusted the EC, 51.22% said yes, 27.42% said no and 21.36% said that they did not know.
Over 15,403 or 82.89% voters said that the scope of reservations for SC/ST/OBCs should be increased in Bihar, 9.76% said that it need not be increased and 7.34% said that they have no opinion on the matter, the survey found.
Building on opposition pressure ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Union government had announced in April that caste enumeration data will be part of the population census. In June, the Union government said that the population census along with the enumeration of castes will be conducted in two phases starting October 1, 2026.
Of those surveyed, 33.15% credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the caste census, while 30.81% credited leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, and another 27.57% cited former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav.
The survey has also revealed that unemployment remains the biggest issue for Dalit voters in the upcoming elections. Of those surveyed, 58.85% said that unemployment is the biggest issue in the election, 14.68% said health and education, 11.21% said corruption, 9.45% said law and order, while 5.81% cited migration.
The survey results also show that 47.51% favoured Modi at a national level against 40.30% who favoured Gandhi. At the state-level, Tejashwi was found more favourable. Over 28% said that they favoured the RJD leader, 25.88% chose Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Union minister Chirag Paswan, while 22.8% cited Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.
On the question of how the Nitish Kumar government had fared in Bihar, 45.46% said “good”, 48.44% said “bad” and 6.1% did not express any opinion.
Ashok Bharti, chairman of NACDAOR, said to The Wire that this is the "first survey of Dalits, by Dalits". The survey was conducted in collaboration with The Convergent Media. Bharti said that when the survey was being conceptualised, it was found that other such surveys often don’t reach Dalits.
“This is the first unique Dalit survey done by Dalits on Dalits. If any other agency goes to them, they often don't tell the truth because they are scared. We identified Dalit activists and trained them to do the survey so we can get true responses. Hence, this is an authentic survey of the Dalits, by Dalits.”
Prem Kumar, director, The Convergent Media said to The Wire that for the purpose of the survey 98 people were chosen out of a pool of 150 from the Dalit community who would go into villages to conduct the survey.
"We trained them on how to conduct the survey, checked their educational background, spoke to them, saw whether they have mobile phones with internet connectivity. We asked them to ensure that their location service was turned on while conducting the survey. About 3,000 samples were done away with because of various reasons including internet services not being turned on in areas where there was no connectivity. Ideally we would have liked to complete the survey in 15 days but it was extended due to the SIR exercise announced on June 24, and we wanted to include its impact," he said.
The 2023 Bihar caste survey found that people from SC communities form about 19% of Bihar's population.
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