“Bihar records the highest degree of internal migration in India” Photo Credit: Neither
When the Indian Election Commission (ECI) is close to the completion of the first phase of its special intensive revision of electoral roles in Bihar (August 1, 2025), there was a predictable cycle of the competition. The accusation of the liberation of poor, minorities and migrants, saturated with political discourse. Opposition leaders criticized ECI methodology as a guerrilla and excreted and framed routine delections as targeted attacks on vulnerable constituents. On the contrary, supporters of the exercises have triggered the need for the sanctity of election roles and rejected such accusations as cynical policy.
Both positions are insufficient and cannot question the structural discrepancies of Indian electoral architecture. They combine fixed ideas of “ordinary stay” with still mobile citizenship and cover a deeper problem. The law itself is poorly tuned to the socio -economic reality to rule. ECI, although institutionally limited, was satisfied with the mismatch to manage this mismatch rather than to question it.
Historical context
The representation of the 1950 people of 1950 was developed in a post-colonial context of mostly sedentary populations-more than 82% of rural and less than 8% of migratory at that time. It was assumed that most Indians lived and voted where they were born. Despite the evidence, the assumption was on the contrary. While the current laws of fixation authorization as the basis of political membership in the election district, Indian internal migrants have more than 450 million, which accounts for 37% of the population. In Bihar, the share is even higher.
Bihar records the highest degree of internal migration in India – 36% of households state that he has at least one migrant. More than 20% of the productive age population lives outside the state at any given moment. This resolution is more than semantic. Creates the exclusion of the material. The 2011 census has already documented that almost 13.9 million Biharis lived outside the state. Today the number will probably be between 17 million to 18 million.
According to Bihar’s main election office, over 1.2 million names were deleted throughout the state this year. Most have been removed due to “non -residence” at the time of verification. In districts with a high degree of migration, such as Goopalganj and Sitamarhi, the deletion approached 5% -7% of the voters. This is not a marginal data and emphasizes the structural release of those whose economic precarrity requires migration.
Two different concepts
Most public debates will collapse two different concepts – citizenship and stay. Citizenship, as anchored in the Constitution and the Citizenship Act, has a legal position. One of them is either or is not a citizen of the Republic of Indian. On the other hand, the residence is a conditional and contextual condition that determines the election district in which the citizen is registered for voting. The representation of the Act on People is a stay, not citizenship, an operational criterion for inclusion in the election district. Millions of workers circulate between their native villages and industrial zones elsewhere, caught in the limit space – neither here nor there. For the subject of migrants, the disgrace is not only bureaucratic, but existential – quiet but strong signal of not being.
Editorial | Careful curator: on Bihar’s special intensive revision of electoral roles
These problems with legislative inertia are more than the result of administrative indifference. ECI inherited this mismatch between law and reality. His institutional reaction was administrative minimalism – strict adherence to process compliance, which often comes for the cost of substantial integration. There is no neutrality of non -linerness in the face of a structural disadvantage or “does not” do “Rolls synonymous with justice, if the rules of residence systematically exclude certain classes of citizens.
Examples from abroad
Other democracy confronted similar dilemmas with greater imagination. In the United States, an estimated 30 million-35 million voters would other than their domestic districts would join in the states. Ascendatee and postal ballots allow them to remain registered in their home districts while voting from the place where they live. The Philippines facilitate the vote absent from their 1.8 million foreign workers – the degree of participation exceeded 60%. Australia uses mobile election stations in distant and transient communities and contributes to more than 90% of voters’ participation. These examples show that the perceived compromise between the integrity of the role and inclusivity is not inevitable or necessary. It is a function of institutional design and political will.
ECI is right to say that he cannot rewrite the law himself. However, they must aggressively defend the reform. His own experience in administering roles in heavy migrants is sufficient evidence of the need for legislative review. At least he should pilot the alternative models of registration and reach within his existing authority.
Political actors are obviously a participation in confusion. They prefer to instrumentate disenfranchisement as a mobilization tool rather than invest in voters’ education and help them through processes and objections. Role proposals are theoretically open to public control, but the barriers of literacy, poor communication and the burden of migration livelihoods make such procedural warranty for most. Surveys show that more than 60% of Bihar voters did not know about the window of demands and objections. Among the migrants, awareness decreases below 25%. Calling for “voters’ responsibility”-as an official discourse-risking bordering on accusation of the victims.
Defense ECI is important. But to demand more and yourself is essential.
SHUBRASTHA is a publicist, author and founder, Churn
Published – 25 July 2025 12:08
