Thakurganj, Bihar: The enumeration form, which Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar described as the sole path for the special intensive revision (SIR), seems to be lacking direction on the ground.

According to the Election Commission (EC), only those voters who submitted their forms were to be considered for the draft SIR list, while voters whose forms were returned incomplete or were not submitted at all were to be excluded. It was assumed that these voters had either relocated or passed away.

However, there are certain regions in Bihar where the draft SIR list contained the names of voters who neither reside there nor have submitted their forms. Their names have now been struck off from the final list.

Baserbati is a gram panchayat situated merely five to six kilometers from the Nepal border. It is located in the Thakurganj block of Kishanganj, a Muslim-majority district in Bihar. This gram panchayat is not only in close proximity to the borders of Nepal and West Bengal, but also Bangladesh.

Upon reaching Bootijhari village in this gram panchayat, we found that the number of mud and brick houses outnumbered the residents inhabiting them.

Ward member Nandkishore Rajak clarified that most of the inhabitants had left the village to work as labourers elsewhere. The names of voters from this locality were registered at booth number 334.

This booth has a total of 817 voters. At least ten individuals have received notices from the EC stating that they have not submitted complete documents.

Media reports indicate that the total number of such voters throughout the state exceeds 3 lakh, with the highest number in Seemanchal, which encompasses the districts of Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia and Katihar.

This notice has been issued because their names appear on the draft SIR list, even though they failed to submit their documents. 

One of them is 29-year-old Sunita Besra. She and her spouse, Tala Hasda, were away for work when we met Hasda’s second wife, Madi Besra, who explained that Sunita had remarried and was no longer a resident here.

This raises a question: if Sunita Besra is not residing here, how did her name get included in the draft SIR list?

Rajiv Kumar Jaiswal, the Booth Level Officer (BLO) at booth number 334 (Middle School, Churli, Thakurganj), where Sunita Besra is registered, said, "A total of 13 individuals received notices at my booth. Among these, Naseema Khatoon's family was served the notice in person. The other voters were not present. So, I pasted a notice on their residence with a few neighbours as witnesses, marked them as absent, and notified the office.

The BLO said that Khatoon had married and relocated to her in-laws' residence. But he had not received any information regarding this matter.

If these voters no longer reside here, who completed their forms and submitted them?

CEC's request for enumeration forms

Last month, CEC Kumar had said during a press conference, "The unique feature of the SIR is that a single enumeration form is utilised to thoroughly purify the voter list, and once each voter completes and submits it, the voter list is generated anew, entirely fresh."

How did the form, which Kumar referred to as the sole method for rectifying the voter list, get disregarded in practice in the Baserbati gram panchayat?

BLO Mohammad Tanveer Alam from booth number 332 said that notices were issued for a total of 10 individuals. One of them submitted his documents. When we asked the BLO about the status of the remaining nine, he said that they had all relocated elsewhere.

Tanveer attributes these inconsistencies to an overwhelming workload imposed by the authorities. The EC in Bihar is facing flak for not allowing sufficient time for the SIR and rushing the completion of forms.

When we asked Anupama Devi, the head of Baserbati, about the voters who received notices, she could not provide any specific information.

She mentioned that the gram panchayat has a population of 22,000, with over 12,000 voters. More than half of these voters belong to the Muslim community, while the remainder come from tribal communities, Dalits (Raghuvanshis) and other groups.

When we spoke with Sparsh Gupta, the Election Registration Officer of Thakurganj, regarding the inconsistency between the notice and the enumeration form, he said, "How is this possible? Notices are generated according to the handwriting, markings, or any partial discrepancies or incompleteness from the BLO. How can notices be served to those who have not completed the form?"

When asked about the rationale behind the EC's decision to issue notices to non-existent voters, Gupta remarked, "If the necessary documents have not been submitted in the SIR, we are providing them with an opportunity."

The Election Registration Officer, a state official, holds a significant position in the SIR process. The final voter list is officially published by the Election Registration Officer.

During the same press conference, CEC Kumar mentioned that within a span of 30 days, enumeration forms for 72.4 million out of Bihar's total 78.9 million voters had been received. However, among the 72.4 million forms received by the EC, were there also forms that had not been completed by voters, which were uploaded hastily?

These queries remain unanswered.

Hemant Kumar Pandey is an independent journalist. 

Translated from Hindi by Naushin Rahman. Read the Hindi original here.

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