Patna: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday stated that the revision of Bihar’s voter list had been carried out strictly in accordance with the law, marking the first major cleansing of the rolls in 22 years. He announced that the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections will be completed before November 22, when the term of the current House ends, and unveiled 17 new reforms aimed at enhancing transparency, efficiency, and voter convenience. These measures, which will be implemented first in Bihar and later adopted across the country, include faster delivery of voter ID cards, a mobile deposit facility at polling stations, a cap of 1,200 voters per booth, mandatory verification of VVPAT slips in case of discrepancies, complete webcasting coverage at all polling stations, and larger, colour photographs of candidates on EVM ballots.
Speaking at a press conference in Patna after a two-day review visit, Kumar, accompanied by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, said the Commission had received feedback from political parties and held discussions with officials on poll preparedness. “With the successful completion of the special intensive revision, the voters’ list in Bihar has been purified. It is after a gap of 22 years that such a cleansing has taken place. The exercise will now be conducted across the country,” he said. He also noted that most parties had requested elections be held immediately after ‘Chhath’, the state’s most popular festival, later this month.
Detailing the reforms, Kumar said that Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPICs) will now be delivered within 15 days of registration, and voters will be required to deposit mobile phones in a room outside polling booths to ensure secrecy. Booth-level officials will carry official ID cards to make
them easily identifiable, and postal ballots will be counted before the final two rounds of EVM counting. In addition, any discrepancy between Form 17C and EVM counts will trigger mandatory verification of the affected VVPAT slips.
Kumar also highlighted that the revised process had removed 65 lakh names from the rolls prior to the draft publication in August and another 3.66 lakh names during the subsequent claims and objections period. Those removed were found ineligible because they were either not citizens, deceased, had migrated, or had duplicate registrations. While category-wise details were not provided, the CEC noted that appeals could still be filed at the district election offices by anyone who believed their name was wrongly deleted. Praising the work of 243 Electoral Registration Officers and 90,207 Booth Level Officers who completed the special intensive revision on time, Kumar invited many of them to pose with the Commission team for photographs. He said the 243-seat Bihar Assembly polls, which include 38 constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and two for Scheduled Tribes, will follow the newly announced procedures to ensure smooth, transparent, and efficient elections, setting a template for national adoption in the future.