RJD MP Sudhakar Singh alleges ‘targeted deletion’ of voters in Bihar
Produces 17 ‘dead’ but alive citizens before Supreme Court
New Delhi – RJD MP Sudhakar Singh has levelled serious allegations against the Election Commission of India (ECI), claiming that lakhs of genuine voters in Bihar have been wrongfully struck off the electoral rolls under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists. Speaking to YouTube channel Red Mike after a Supreme Court hearing on Tuesday, Singh said he personally brought 17 people to the court whose names had been removed on the grounds that they were “dead” – but all were alive.
Singh, who is one of the petitioners in the case, said the number of such wrongful deletions runs into lakhs across the state. “If the Election Commission gives us a train, we will fill it with people who have been declared dead but are alive,” he said, adding that the 17 he brought to court were only from a single list he had prepared. He claimed that in one booth alone, 275 people had been marked as dead despite being alive, and his team had photographed them along with their EPIC cards to prove their identity.
The RJD leader also alleged large-scale addition of fake names in voter lists. “In Maharashtra, 65-70 lakh fake names were added. In one Lok Sabha seat in Bangalore, 1,15,000 votes were added. Now the same thing has started in Bihar,” Singh said. As an example, he claimed that two fake names – Suraj Singh and Manoj Kumar Rathod, had been added to the voter list at his own residential address, which is also the house.
According to Singh, this process is happening on two fronts, wrongful deletion of genuine voters and insertion of fake or duplicate names. “In my booth, Ashok Singh’s name has been added twice. Avdhesh Singh’s name has been added twice. This is not about ending fake names; this is about creating a committed voter list for BJP and RSS to win elections,” he alleged.
He further accused the ECI of refusing to share the list of 65 lakh voters removed from the draft rolls with either the petitioners or even the Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court is the temple of justice. If the Election Commission refuses to bring facts before the court, it means it wants to hide its theft,” he said. Singh pointed out that under the law, any voter whose name is removed must be informed of the reason and given a chance to respond, something he claimed was not being done anywhere in Bihar.
Slamming the poll panel, Singh alleged it was functioning for the benefit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi rather than as an independent constitutional body. He criticised recent changes in the appointment process of Election Commissioners, which now involve the Prime Minister and Home Minister instead of an earlier system that included the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India.
Singh also questioned the ECI’s claim that the list of deletions had been given to Booth Level Agents (BLAs). “Yes, they gave it to BLAs, but in English. Bihar is a Hindi-speaking state – how many people here can read English? And the list doesn’t even mention the reason for deletion. This is like giving a hungry man rice mixed with pebbles and later saying we fed him,” he remarked.
He warned that the exercise would particularly harm migrant workers from Bihar, many of whom work in other states and may be unable to return to fix their records. “Forty percent of people in Bihar have no land papers, 35 percent are illiterate. How will they produce the documents the Election Commission is asking for? This is not just an attack on voters, it is an attack on citizenship,” he said. Singh also predicted similar exercises would be carried out in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, possibly just before elections to prevent affected voters from appealing in time.
The same day, political activist Yogendra Yadav, also a petitioner in the matter, appeared before a bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi and produced two men who had been declared dead in Bihar’s SIR process but were alive. Calling the ongoing deletion drive “the largest exercise of disenfranchisement in the history of the world”, Yadav told the court that 65 lakh names had been removed from Bihar’s electoral rolls and warned the number could cross one crore.
“This is not an issue of routine revision. This is mass exclusion. These people are declared dead but are alive. Please see them,” Yadav told the judges. He argued that the assumption that Bihar’s voter list was inflated and needed correction was wrong and warned that extending SIR to other states would produce similar results.
When Justice Kant asked if a similar exercise in 2003 had been studied for its impact, Yadav replied that no such comparison was ever made and this was the first time in India’s history that a voter list revision had taken place with “zero additions” – meaning no new voters were registered during the process.
Yadav highlighted that 31 lakh women and 25 lakh men had been deleted from the rolls and described the process as “intensive deletion”. He also raised concerns about the workload of Electoral Registration Officers in Bihar, who are also Block Development Officers and are dealing with floods, yet expected to scrutinise thousands of forms daily.
Justice Bagchi acknowledged the possibility of “inadvertent error” in cases where living people were marked as dead but said the court took Yadav’s points seriously. Justice Kant praised Yadav’s analysis, telling him, “Thank you Mr Yadav, you have given excellent analysis. Thank you for your assistance.”
The hearing will continue on Wednesday.
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BJP blaming Iran-Israel war for everything, says Akhilesh; questions foreign policy
Lucknow (PTI): Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday alleged that the BJP was blaming the Iran-Israel conflict for a range of domestic issues and said such claims were an attempt to hide policy failures.
Responding to a question on the impact of the West Asia situation on industries in Kanpur during a press conference here, Yadav said that the responsibility for the condition of industries lies with the BJP government.
"These people may now even say that the Ganga is not getting cleaned because of the war in West Asia," the former UP chief minister remarked.
He said the government was diverting attention from farmers' issues and bringing up unrelated matters.
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Referring to fertiliser shortages, he said that farmers had to stand in long queues and fertilisers were not available even earlier, and "now such shortages could be attributed to the Iran-Israel conflict".
He added that this was a failure of government policy and accused the BJP of shifting blame.
Yadav also said that potato farmers were not getting fair prices and alleged that the government might attribute this as well to the ongoing conflict.
On a question related to foreign policy and India's ties with the United States, Yadav said he would not like to comment in detail as his knowledge on the subject was limited, but noted that the influence of the US was visible in many areas.
"If one studies past speeches of leaders, including those from the opposition, after Independence, it would be clear what kind of foreign policy India should have pursued and how it has evolved over time," the leader of the third largest party in Lok Sabha noted.
Yadav also referred to discussions around foreign funding to NGOs and their possible influence on policies, but said these were "contentious issues" on which he would not like to comment further at present.
"Our immediate focus is on ensuring respect for PDA (Backward classes, Dalits and minorities), establishing the rule of social justice and removing the corrupt BJP from government," he said.
On a question related to claims about late night voting during polls in Andhra Pradesh in 2024 coming to light now, Yadav said that concerns had been raised about voting continuing late into the night in some instances.
"Our stance is clear on this matter. In several progressive and developed countries such as the United States, Germany, Japan and England, voting is done through ballots despite their advanced technological capabilities.
"In Germany, the use of electronic voting machines has even been considered unconstitutional," he said, and questioned the continued reliance on EVMs and VVPAT systems in India.
Yadav reiterated his party's stand in favour of returning to ballot voting, saying it would at least allow poorer voters to visibly express their choice.
"The poor cannot vent out their anguish against the government by just pressing the button of the EVM. Using the ballot stamp, they can properly vent out their anger," he said in a lighter vein.
On a separate question regarding student politics and demands for the revival of student unions in universities, Yadav said that if the Samajwadi Party forms the government in Uttar Pradesh, it would send delegations of students from universities in the state to reputed global institutions such as the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.
"These delegations would observe student union systems and share their experiences, and students from those institutions would also be invited to Lucknow for conferences to exchange ideas," he added.
