Mobility, Marginality, and the Meaning of the Vote
Bihar’s 2025 Electoral Roll Deletions and the Structural Disenfranchisement of Migrants
✍️ Suryavanshi IAS | Polity, Ethics & Governance Series
🔍 Section I: Introduction – A New Electoral Fault Line
As the Election Commission of India (ECI) nears the conclusion of the first phase of its Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls in Bihar (August 2025), a predictable but deeply worrying pattern has re-emerged — voter deletions on a massive scale, predominantly in migrant-dense districts.
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Over 1.2 million names have been removed from the rolls.
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In districts like Gopalganj, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga, and Katihar, deletions range between 5-7% of enrolled voters.
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The most common reason cited? Non-residency during verification.
The Political Responses:
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Opposition Parties: Accuse the ECI of orchestrating a targeted disenfranchisement of migrants, minorities, and the poor.
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Supporters: Defend it as a much-needed cleanup exercise to ensure roll integrity.
Yet both perspectives fail to engage with a more fundamental issue — that India’s electoral laws and administrative design are structurally unprepared to deal with a mobile citizenry.
🧭 Section II: Historical Background – The Sedentary Assumption
🏛️ Representation of the People Act, 1950
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Drafted in a post-colonial era when India was 82% rural, and internal migration was minimal.
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It assumed that individuals reside, vote, and die in the same location.
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The law equated political belonging with fixed residence.
The Legal Framework:
| Provision | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Section 19 of RPA, 1950 | Allows registration only at the “ordinary place of residence” |
| Section 22 | Empowers EROs to delete names if a person has ceased to be ordinarily resident |
📊 Section III: Migration in India – A Demographic Disruption
India’s internal migration is massive, under-recognised, and politically ignored:
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Census 2011: Over 450 million internal migrants, forming 37% of the total population.
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In Bihar, 36% households report at least one migrant.
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Nearly 18 million Biharis are currently estimated to live outside the State for work.
| Migration Type | Primary Driver |
|---|---|
| Rural-to-Urban | Employment, education, seasonal work |
| Interstate | Construction, brick kilns, textile, agriculture |
| Circular | Temporary, often cyclical migration with dual attachment to home and work site |
These migrants retain strong social, economic, and emotional ties to their home villages, yet legally lose their electoral rights if absent during verification.
🧾 Section IV: Disenfranchisement by Design – Not Accident
What happened in Bihar in 2025:
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ECI initiated door-to-door verification as part of its Special Revision.
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Enumerators struck off names if individuals were absent during the visit, or if neighbors reported non-residency.
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No proactive attempt was made to check if these persons were working migrants.
Key Legal Loophole:
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“Ordinary residence” is undefined in precise terms, and open to subjective interpretation.
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Migrants with valid documents (Aadhaar, Voter ID, utility bills, etc.) are often still deleted if not physically present.
The result is a quiet electoral cleansing of those whose lives are already marked by precarity and displacement.
⚖️ Section V: The Citizenship–Residency Confusion
A core problem in both law and public discourse is the confusion between “citizenship” and “residency.”
| Concept | Definition | Legal Source |
|---|---|---|
| Citizenship | A constitutional and legal status | Constitution, Citizenship Act, 1955 |
| Residency | A condition for electoral enrollment in a particular constituency | RPA, 1950 |
This disconnect disproportionately harms migrants, especially the poor, who are invisible to the system during surveys and revisions.
🗺️ Section VI: Comparative Models – Solutions from the World
Several democracies have modernised their electoral laws to accommodate mobile populations:
| Country | Reform |
|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 United States | Absentee and mail-in ballots allow voters to remain registered in home precincts |
| 🇵🇭 Philippines | Allows overseas absentee voting for its 1.8 million migrant workers |
| 🇦🇺 Australia | Sends mobile polling stations to remote areas and seasonal camps |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | No deletion without written confirmation by the individual |
These examples prove that it is possible to balance roll integrity with inclusion, if political will exists.
🏛️ Section VII: ECI’s Role – Administrative Minimalism vs Institutional Vision
The ECI claims it is bound by the law, and this is legally accurate.
However:
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The ECI is not a post office — it is a constitutional authority under Article 324, expected to ensure free and fair elections.
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It has a duty to propose reforms, pilot alternative models, and ensure that democratic processes evolve with society.
“To defend the ECI is important. But to demand more of it — and of ourselves — is imperative.”
🧠 Section VIII: UPSC Relevance
📘 GS Paper 2 – Governance & Polity
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Electoral Roll Management
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Representation of the People Act
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Role of Election Commission
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Rights of Internal Migrants
📘 GS Paper 3 – Social Issues
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Migration and its structural challenges
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Exclusion of the poor from democratic processes
📘 GS Paper 4 – Ethics
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Procedural justice vs Substantive justice
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Silent marginalisation through law
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Empathy in public administration
✍️ Mains Practice Question
Q. Discuss the legal, administrative, and ethical implications of linking electoral enfranchisement to “ordinary residence” in a country with a large migrant population. Use the example of the 2025 Bihar electoral roll deletions.
(250 words | GS Paper 2)
🧾 Prelims MCQs
Q1. Which section of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, governs the condition of "ordinary residence" for voter registration?
a) Section 15
b) Section 17
c) Section 19 ✅
d) Section 21
Q2. As per Census 2011, what was the estimated number of internal migrants in India?
a) 200 million
b) 350 million
c) 450 million ✅
d) 550 million
Q3. Which country uses mobile polling units to facilitate voting in remote or migrant-heavy regions?
a) United Kingdom
b) Australia ✅
c) France
d) Canada
🔑 Suryavanshi IAS Takeaways
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Mobility must not erase identity.
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Laws written in a different era must evolve with society.
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The vote is not just a right — it's a recognition of citizenship in action.
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To clean electoral rolls is legitimate — to do so without care for the excluded is not.
🗣️ "A name on the voter list is more than data — it is democracy’s acknowledgement that you matter."
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