The Rate of Exclusion For Muslims Higher in Election Commission's Final Bihar Voter Roll
New Delhi: A massive “special intensive revision” drive of the electoral rolls, conducted by the Election Commission of India in Bihar from June to September 2025 has resulted in voters with Muslim-sounding names being permanently struck off the lists at a higher rate than their non-Muslim counterparts.
A detailed analysis of constituency-wise data from the SIR exercise shows that while Muslims constituted 24.7% of the 65,75,222 lakh voters initially flagged for scrutiny, they accounted for 32.1% of the 323,000 voters who were ultimately confirmed for deletion after a period of ground-level verification.
This disparity, as per the data, is wider in the Seemanchal area of the state, both in terms of absolute numbers of those with Muslim-sounding names who found themselves excluded, as well as the percentage of exclusion experienced by Muslims here, being higher than in the rest of the state. While in absolute numbers, large absolute numbers of excluded Muslims may be expected as these areas have a high proportion of Muslims, the percentage of exclusion for Muslims being higher here, is a matter of concern.
This disparity in outcome raises critical questions about the equitable implementation of a process that the ECI, in a September 30 press note, called a "grand success" conducted with the "full involvement of all the 12 major Political Parties" and their 1.6 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs).
How the numbers shifted
The SIR process can be understood as a two-stage funnel designed to weed out ineligible voters. However, the data shows the composition of those being weeded out changed dramatically between stages.
Stage 1: The initial flagging
The process began by identifying a pool of 6,575,222 voters for potential deletion based on a month-long verification by election officials of duplicates, demographic similarities, and other logical errors. This was the raw list handed over for verification.
- Non-Muslims flagged: 4,875,738
- Muslims flagged: 1,626,990 (24.7% of the pool)
Stage 2: The final deletion (the confirmed removals)
After a period of claims and objections by voters themselves and by Booth Level Agents (BLAs), an analysed list of 323,372 voters were permanently removed from the electoral rolls.
- Non-Muslims deleted: 203,651
- Muslims deleted: 103,724 (32.1% of the deleted group)
The deletion rate
The most telling statistic is the deletion rate – the probability of a flagged voter being permanently removed.
- For a flagged non-Muslim voter, the deletion rate was 4.18% (203,651 deleted from 4,875,738 flagged).
- For a flagged Muslim voter, the deletion rate was 6.38% (103,724 deleted from 1,626,990 flagged).
This means that once a citizen was placed on the scrutiny list, their chances of losing their franchise were over 50% higher if they had a Muslim-sounding name.
Concentrated impact in Seemanchal
The disparity was not uniform across Bihar but was acutely concentrated in the state's Seemanchal region, which emerged as the epicentre for both the rate of disparity and the sheer volume of deletions.
Analysis of deletion rates shows that in Kishanganj (AC 54), the deletion rate for a flagged Muslim was 3.7%, nearly double the 1.9% for a flagged non-Muslim.
Beyond the rates, this region was also ground zero for the absolute number of deletions from the minority community. Just four constituencies – Araria (4,182), Sikta (4,040), Katihar (3,644), and Jokihat (2,836) – saw a combined total of over 14,000 Muslim voters struck from the rolls.
This skewed outcome cannot be explained as a statistical quirk of the region's demographics. While Seemanchal's larger Muslim population naturally leads to a higher absolute number of deletions from the community, it does not explain why the rate of deletion was also disproportionately higher. A fair process ensures that every flagged individual, regardless of community, faces the same statistical probability of removal. The fact that this probability changed so dramatically in these areas could be the clearest evidence so far of an inequitable process.
The onus is now on the Election Commission to investigate and explain why a system built on its motto of "no eligible voter to be left out" produced a result that so disproportionately impacted one community in specific geographic pockets.
As the election process comes under scrutiny, read The Wire's coverage of the Bihar SIR, opposition's allegations and more, here
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