By Arun Srivastava
Despite Rahul Gandhi donning critical and aggressive posture and putting Narendra Modi on the mat in the current assembly polls campaign in Bihar, the Dalits, rural poor and pasmanda Muslims are yet to acquire sufficient confidence of exercising their right to vote. With four days left for the first phase of voting, the uncertainty looms large on their faces.
Their fear primarily owes to campaign mode and posture adopted by the BJP and RSS cadres. They are going around and even addressing poorly attended election meetings and rallies, but allude over confidence of their win. Their maintaining distance from Nitish Kumar, or in other way Nitish refusing to share dais with BJP leaders, have given rise to suspicion that the BJP is determined not to lose Bihar election. The ruling coalition will do every devious means to win the polls this time.
Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah from the beginning have taken the INDIA Bloc challenge in Bihar polls seriously. Home Minister Shah is masterminding the strategy and the official machinery is being guided accordingly. The functioning of the Election Commission of India(ECI) and other senior officials are showing indications of partiality towards the ruling NDA.
The intentions of ECI looked doubtful as it did not give its officials the access to the software to detect frauds and duplicates in the voter list. This made clear that ECI was not willing to allow every one the right to vote. Else there was no reason for not giving access. Many Dalits fear that the election officials at the polling booths would deny them their right to vote using one or other alibi.
Bihar’s SIR Voter list makes it explicit that besides 47 lakh voters, around 14.35 lakh would also not be allowed to vote on the plea of being duplicate entries. This has been part of the well-drawn conspiracy not to allow the Dalits, and pasmanda Muslims to vote as they have shown their inclination to vote for INDIA especially to the Congress.
It is not that INDIA Bloc or Congress leadership were not conscious of any such move of ECI. In fact they were not in the position to do much as the matter was being heard by the Supreme Court. Ironically the apex court did not take their argument seriously that the SIR was “part of a conspiracy to further the Sangh Parivar’s agenda of depriving the poor, tribals, Dalits, women, and minorities of their right to vote”. Left parties have even alleged that about 10 lakh women voters have been removed from the voter list in Bihar.
Left parties said: “This is the first time in history that the number of female voters has declined despite an increase in the female population and a partial improvement in the sex ratio in Bihar. The Election Commission claimed it was using this process to remove infiltrators from the voter list. However, during his press conference, the Chief Election Commissioner failed to disclose how many infiltrators had been found in Bihar and what had happened to them”.
Since the ECI has not furnished the details of the 47 lakh missing voters, a poor voter may be asked to go back on the pleas that his name is not in the list. The poor guy is not aware whether his name existed in the list at all. Rahul Gandhi has been right in accusing Modi of trying to steal votes in the name of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. Though he said that “INDIA bloc will not allow this to happen in Bihar”, he has done precious little to check it. The poor villagers are not aware of the mechanism to force the presiding officer to allow them to vote despite carrying Aadhaar card.
The Election Commission of India announced in a press release on July 21 that it has asked political parties in Bihar to help locate nearly 74 lakh voters who are at risk of being excluded from the state’s electoral rolls. With the first phase of polling scheduled on November 6, the ECI has not furnished concrete info as to how many such voters have been located. It is certainly not the duty of the political parties to inform people about the actual number of such retrieved voters. Commission’s own data shows that its field officers have been unable to find 43.93 lakh electors at their listed addresses.
It would not be wrong to say that ECI has used the SIR as a “weapon” for “vote chori”. This act of weaponisation of mandate is being tried in Bihar assembly polls. This can be repeated in other states in the coming assembly polls.,
It is quite revealing to know that like BLOs, many of the election officials deputed to conduct the polling, owe their political and ideological allegiance to RSS. Obviously they cannot be expected to be neutral and unbiased. A simple mistake would be enough to deny the right to vote to the Dalits and ask them go back to home. BJP as a part of its strategy on October 29, 2025 accused the Congress of opposing the SIR to safeguard their “vote bank”, and alleging that they were engaging in “hypocrisy and appeasement politics”. Nevertheless it is a known fact that every political party, even the BJP strives to safe and protect its vote bank. Ther is nothing wrong in it. BJP leaders want to ensure that the INDIA Bloc vote bank fails to exercise their franchise in the November assembly polls. (IPA Service)
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