More than 5,000 votes belonging to residents of Uttar Pradesh are alleged to have been enrolled in Bihar’s West Champaran district, even as opposition parties have already accused the Election Commission of removing over 19 lakh names during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise ahead of the assembly elections. The INDIA bloc claimed that the new entries were part of a deliberate attempt to aid the ruling NDA, but the Election Commission rejected the charge as “imaginary” and lacking in evidence.
Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala and RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha raised the allegation at a press conference in Phulparas in Madhubani, saying that “doubtful” voters had been registered mostly in the Valmiki Nagar assembly segment. They cited the case of a 45-year-old man from Khadda constituency in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district, whose name also appeared in the Bihar rolls.
“The doubtful voters number more than 5,000 and have been deliberately added for the benefit of the ruling alliance,” Surjewala and Jha alleged, calling it a systematic attempt to distort the electoral rolls. However, the Commission denied the allegation, saying in an official statement that “the very purpose of the draft rolls is to invite claims and objections with regard to duplications or discrepancies, and the figures quoted are imaginary and unverifiable.”
The West Champaran district administration, through a statement shared by the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, explained that the electoral roll published on 1 August was only a draft. “In the press conference, the figure of more than 5,000 doubtful voters has been bandied about without any details or evidence. It seems to be an imaginary figure which does not lend itself to verification,” the statement read.
Officials added that in areas like Valmiki Nagar, changes in river courses often force residents to shift their address, leading to instances where a person’s name appears in more than one place. The administration further clarified that Chhedi Ram, the Khadda voter cited by the INDIA bloc leaders, was included in the draft roll but had already applied for deletion of his name from the UP constituency, demonstrating that the revision process itself is intended to resolve such overlaps rather than enable them.