Amid reports of the deletion of about 65 lakh voters after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, an investigation by the Reporters’ Collective found that about 80,000 Muslims were on the edge of losing their franchise to vote, in a reportedly fraudulent application claiming they were not Indian citizens, with the applications urging their deletion also forwarded by BJP quarters, including the office of the BJP MLA in Dhaka constituency.
The investigation revealed that repeated submissions were filed before the Election Commission of India’s local and state officials demanding mass deletion of Muslim names from the Dhaka constituency rolls, and while some petitions targeted smaller groups of individuals, one sweeping submission sought to strike off more than 78,000 voters, which amounted to nearly 40 per cent of the electorate.
These petitions were made in the name of BJP functionaries and on the party’s official letterhead, which indicated a concerted political attempt, yet the election authorities did not take any visible punitive action against those responsible for filing such false claims.
The findings highlighted that all the voters marked for deletion belonged to the Muslim community, and the lists carried only Muslim names or names stereotypically associated with Muslims, which suggested that either digital software was employed to filter them or a systematic booth-level effort was carried out to isolate and compile them.
Such attempts, if accepted, could have had a decisive impact in Dhaka, as the constituency is a closely contested seat where the BJP secured victory in 2020 over the Rashtriya Janata Dal by just over ten thousand votes out of a total of a little above two lakh polled.
The collective traced the petitions to booth-level agents of the BJP who certified the lists under the penal provisions of the Representation of the People Act, though no specific reasons were given for each deletion as required by the rules, and later submissions expanded the demand dramatically, including one filed in the name of the personal assistant of the BJP MLA from Dhaka.
Another petition claimed that all the targeted Muslim voters were non-citizens, and this was signed by an individual whose identity could not be verified within the party structure, but despite the alleged forgery, the party did not lodge any complaint with the police.
Election officials confirmed receipt of the petitions, and while they stated that bulk removals would not be entertained and verification would take place during the regular SIR process, they declined to share documentary evidence of how the complaints were handled, thereby raising doubts about procedural transparency.
The report further observed that the Election Commission had deviated from its own manual during the SIR by invoking discretionary rules, which weakened safeguards and created a regulatory vacuum, thereby enabling such manipulative attempts to pass unchecked.
Dhaka, situated in East Champaran district and bordering Nepal, has historically been a bastion of the Congress and later the RJD, but the BJP has also won it in recent years with fluctuating margins, and the seat remains a highly competitive political ground. The current BJP legislator, who reclaimed the seat in 2020, faces re-election later this year against the RJD’s Faisal Rahman, whose family has held the constituency in earlier decades, and in such a volatile contest, even limited voter deletions could drastically tilt the result.
The revelations came at a time when the SIR exercise itself has been challenged across Bihar, with opposition parties and civil society groups alleging that it is disproportionately targeting marginalised communities, and the controversy has drawn national attention as similar concerns about systematic voter deletions have been raised in other states.