Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale has accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of deleting 1.26 crore voters from Bihar’s electoral rolls following its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, announced on June 24, 2025, ahead of the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections.

In a July 28, 2025, post on X, Gokhale called the deletions “bizarre,” claiming the ECI failed to disclose details about alleged non-citizen voters, despite citing removal of illegal immigrants as a key motive. He challenged the Modi government to debate the issue in Parliament, echoing West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s claim that the SIR is a “backdoor NRC” targeting marginalized voters.

The ECI reported that 7.24 crore (91.69%) of Bihar’s 7.89 crore voters submitted enumeration forms by July 27, 2025. Of the 65 lakh non-submitters, 22 lakh (2.83%) were marked deceased, 36 lakh (4.59%) untraceable, and 3.5 lakh (0.89%) duplicates, totaling 1.26 crore deletions.

Gokhale questioned how 1.26 crore voters became ineligible within a year of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, noting this exceeds the combined population of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. He raised concerns about opaque processes, uncollected forms, and missing data on non-citizens, especially after ECI claims of finding voters from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

The Supreme Court, hearing challenges from groups like the Association for Democratic Reforms, criticized the SIR’s timing and exclusion of Aadhaar and ration cards for verification, warning of potential disenfranchisement of up to 3 crore voters, particularly the poor and migrants. The ECI insists no deletions will occur without due process, with a draft roll due August 1 and objections accepted until September 1, 2025. Opposition leaders, including RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, allege voter suppression to favor the BJP-led NDA.

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