Bihar Assembly Election 2025: The voters in Dhaka constituency of Bihar are fighting with a sudden uncertainty linked to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Election Commission of India (ECI). A submission, allegedly by a BJP functionary, to delete as many as 78,384 Muslim names from the draft roll, has opposition parties on toes. An investigation done by The Reporters’ Collective has claimed to have found multiple requests to remove Muslim names from the voter lists, and all requests were made by BJP leaders.
The ECI began the SIR in June, leading to a massive row and multiple pleas in the Supreme Court. The final roll is to be published on September 30, as the poll panel readies for the Bihar elections. However, the details coming out from Dhaka in Bihar raises several questions.
The report found out that formal written submissions were made to the ECI’s district officer (Electoral Registration Officer or ERO) and to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Bihar, in the name of personal assistant of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s MLA from Dhaka – Pawan Kumar Jaiswal.
When contacted, the Electoral Registration Officer said the office would verify these documents during the verification of the SIR, the report added.
What does the Dhaka probe reveal?
The Reporters’ Collective stated that the ECI began the SIR in Dhaka, like the rest of Bihar on June 30 and the residents had just a month to understand and do the needful. It claimed that despite ECI saying that officials are there to help the voters, the ground reality was totally different.
The BLOs and volunteers were not enough, and political parties’ booth agents operated for their own vested interest, the report mentioned. Before the deadline of August 31 to submit complaints and amendments, the BJP’s booth-level agents (BLA) began filing complaints for the deletion of voters. The frequency, the report said, was ten a day. It added that all these voters were Muslims.
“I hereby declare that the information furnished by me is on the basis of proper verification of the part of the electoral roll given to me and I am aware of the penal provisions of Section 31 of Representation of People’s Act, 1950 for making false declaration,” the declaration by the BJP’s booth-level agent (BLA) read, the investigative report said.
The election office received a request to delete 130 names in 10 days, and more was to come.
BJP MLA’s PA submits fresh request on last day
On the last day of submission, the ERO office received a submission of a document signed in the name of Dhiraj Kumar, the personal assistant of Dhaka MLA Pawan Jaiswal. It said that people who were not there on the list till January 2025, were there on the draft roll.
And hence, he gave a list to remove some names from the list – a total of 78,384 names. The Reporters’ Collective’s investigation found that all these were Muslims.
Not only the ERO office, but a separate letter was also sent on the BJP state headquarters letterhead to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) at Patna, the report mentioned. The same 78,384 names were mentioned here also, but the letter was signed in the name of one “Lokesh” – Tirhut Pramandal Prabhari, Election Management Department, Bihar.
No one knows ‘Lokesh’, but no complaint filed
The report claimed they spoke to a number of BJP functionaries and no one seemed to know this ‘Lokesh’.
“There is no Lokesh working for the BJP here,” Muzzafarpur’s BJP Chunao Prabhandak, Govind Srivastav, told them. They added that Sunil Sahni, the BJP’s Organisational President for Dhaka also denied knowing any ‘Lokesh’, but he did not also deny the existence of the letter.
The report mentioned that despite this, none of the BJP people filed any complaint of a letter being sent on the organisation’s name.
The ERO, when enquired on the matter, said, “Documents of these (78,000) voters would get verified during the regular verification period of the SIR.”