Congress's Concerns:

Congress's election monitoring cell 'Eagle' has criticized the voter list's 'Special Intensive Revision' (SIR) process in a detailed statement. According to the party's initial analysis:

- 5 Lakh Duplicate Names: There are more than 5 lakh duplicate entries in the final voter list with the same name, relative's name, age, gender, and address.

- Deletion of 67.3 Lakh Names: Surprisingly, the names of 67.3 lakh voters have been removed, of which more than one-tenth belong to just 15 assembly constituencies.

The statement said:

"If more than 5 lakh duplicate names still exist, what is the purpose of this special revision? How will the Election Commission verify and clean them?"

The Mystery of 30 Lakh Voters:

Congress emphasized that out of 7.72 crore registered voters of Bihar in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, about 30 lakh are no longer voters in the November 2025 assembly elections. The party raised questions:

- Who are these 30 lakh people?

- How many of them voted in the Lok Sabha elections?

- Was the deletion of these names transparent and fair?

The Election Commission has not yet presented the reasons for the deletion of these names or any unified list of these individuals, which is shaking public confidence.

New Voters Controversy:

According to the statement, the Election Commission claimed that 21.53 lakh new voters were added, but Form 6 (application form for new voters) was submitted for only 16.93 lakh. Congress asked:

- Where are the forms of the remaining 4.6 lakh voters?

- Were they added without proper procedure?

Congress's Demands:

The party demanded from the Election Commission that:

- Allowing additions to the voter list should be stopped 10 days before the last date of nomination.

- The final voter list should be frozen on the date of nomination, and no supplementary or additional list should be issued after that.

- Elections should be held based only on this final list.

Congress said that Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has been continuously mentioning irregularities in the voter list. The party's stance is that the Election Commission's responses will be an important step toward restoring public confidence.

Sanctity of Democracy and a Pledge:

Congress concluded its statement with these words:

"We welcome every effort to make voter lists transparent and clean. But the Election Commission must answer our questions so that public confidence in the authenticity of voter lists is restored."

This controversy is not merely about statistics, but about the fundamental principle of democracy—transparency and justice. The people of Bihar and India's democracy demand an answer.

References:

The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Wire, Moneycontrol, X Post