India, the world’s largest democracy, is in the throes of a heated debate over the credibility of its electoral process. As Bihar, one of its most populous states, prepares for pivotal elections later this year, the Election Commission of India (ECI)—once revered as an impartial guardian of democracy—finds itself at the center of a storm. Accusations of large-scale voter fraud, wrongful deletions, and opaque procedures are flying from all directions, with the opposition led by Rahul Gandhi on one side and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the other. The resulting clash is not just about electoral rolls; it’s about the very soul of Indian democracy.
The controversy erupted on June 24, 2025, when the Election Commission ordered a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s voter rolls, the first such effort in 22 years. According to the Times of India, a staggering 400,000 officials and volunteers were deployed across the state, going door to door to verify records. The stated aim was to clean up the rolls—removing names of the deceased, those who had shifted, duplicates, and at the same time, including new voters who had just turned 18. On paper, it was a routine administrative exercise. In practice, it triggered outrage and suspicion.
The timing of the revision was particularly contentious. Bihar was reeling from devastating floods that had displaced thousands and destroyed vital documents. New rules required those born after 1987 to provide not only their own birth certificates but also those of their parents, while Aadhaar and MNREGA cards—commonly held by the poor and rural families—were not accepted as proof. For many, especially daily wage workers and marginalized communities, meeting these requirements was nearly impossible.
On August 7, Rahul Gandhi took the fight national. At a press conference, he claimed to have “irrefutable evidence” of fraud, pointing specifically to Mahadevapura in Bengaluru, a BJP stronghold. He alleged over 100,000 fake entries in the voter list, including 11,000 duplicate votes, 40,000 invalid addresses, 10,000 bulk votes, 4,000 fake photos, and 33,000 fraudulent new voters. According to Mahabahu.com, Gandhi called this a “crime against the Constitution” and declared, “Indian democracy no longer exists.” He argued that the BJP needed 25 more seats for a Lok Sabha majority and that these seats were “stolen.” In Karnataka alone, he claimed, Congress should have won 16 seats but lost 7 due to manipulation.
The BJP responded swiftly. Minister Anurag Thakur dismissed the charges as hypocrisy, pointing out that irregularities had also been reported in opposition-held seats, including Rahul Gandhi’s own Raebareli constituency, Priyanka Gandhi’s Wayanad, Abhishek Banerjee’s seat in Bengal, and Akhilesh Yadav’s Kannauj. Thakur went so far as to question Gandhi’s sincerity: if he truly believed the process was fraudulent, would he resign from Raebareli? The tit-for-tat accusations exposed a deeper malaise—if both the ruling party and the opposition question the legitimacy of elections, whom can the public trust?
Back in Bihar, the revision exercise produced staggering results. Around 6.5 million names were struck off the rolls, according to Bihar Chief Electoral Officer Vinod Singh Gunjiyal. The deleted names fell under the ASD (absentee, shifted, dead) category, which included deceased voters, those who had moved, and duplicate entries. The Election Commission complied with a Supreme Court order to publish detailed, booth-wise lists with reasons for each deletion both online and at local offices. Voters who believed their names had been wrongly removed were given until September 1 to file claims, using their Aadhaar cards as supporting documents.
The data released showed 2.2 million names deleted as deceased, 3.6 million as shifted or untraceable, and 700,000 as duplicates. These numbers immediately raised eyebrows. Could so many deaths and shifts have gone unreported for so long? The opposition, led by Tejashwi Yadav and Dipankar Bhattacharya, filed a petition in the Supreme Court demanding that the Commission publish the details in a searchable format. They argued that the Commission was hiding information by removing user-friendly, searchable PDFs and replacing them with scanned images that could not be easily analyzed.
The Supreme Court ordered the Commission to publish full details online and physically in every panchayat and block office, a directive the Commission fulfilled within 56 hours. Yet, the controversy refused to die down. The Election Commission called a rare Sunday press conference to defend its actions. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, flanked by colleagues Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, explained that the unreported deaths had accumulated over two decades and that the clean-up was long overdue. They said errors dating back before 2003 were finally being corrected, with three lakh such mistakes already fixed.
On allegations of dubious house numbers, the Commission clarified that “house number 0” was assigned to homeless citizens to ensure their right to vote. On the issue of duplication, officials explained that a person could be registered in multiple constituencies, but voting in more than one was a crime punishable by law. When asked to release CCTV footage from polling stations, the Commission argued that doing so would breach voter privacy, especially for women, and could be misused in the age of artificial intelligence. Chief Election Commissioner Kumar struck a defiant note: “We stand like a rock with all voters. The sun still rises in the east. Repeating a lie will not make it the truth.”
Despite these assurances, skepticism persisted. Rahul Gandhi launched a Vote Adhikar Yatra in Bihar, insisting that the Commission lacked independence. The opposition announced plans for an impeachment motion against the Chief Election Commissioner, though constitutionally this is nearly impossible without a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The move, while symbolic, underscored a deep loss of trust.
Further anomalies surfaced. Kerala Congress shared electoral rolls from villages near Jaipur, where every house was listed under number “9999999.” Such oddities, along with the “house number 0” issue, provided fresh ammunition for critics. Meanwhile, a study by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, reported in The Hindu, found that distrust in the Commission in Uttar Pradesh had jumped from 16 percent to 31 percent in just one year, with even higher figures in Delhi. One in three citizens now doubts the Commission’s impartiality—a dangerous signal for a country of 1.4 billion people.
Amidst the uproar, the Election Commission pointed out that none of the 12 registered political parties in Bihar, each with over 160,000 booth-level agents, had submitted even a single formal objection to the revision process. Instead, 45,616 individuals filed claims and 152,651 applied to have their names added to the voter list. Still, the broader question lingers: if faith in the electoral process collapses, what remains of democracy?
For all the legal wrangling and public posturing, the heart of the crisis is trust. Elections are the mechanism through which citizens exercise sovereignty. If voter lists are riddled with dead names, duplicates, fake addresses, and wrongful deletions, the foundation of democracy is shaken. Restoring faith will require more than compliance with court orders; it will demand transparency, fairness, and a return to the fearless integrity of past election commissioners. In a nation where the vote is sacred, nothing less will do.
