When Bihar deleted 65 lakh voters, NDA seats saw heaviest cuts

When the Election Commission’s draft voter rolls in Bihar deleted 65 lakh voters, the opposition parties cried foul and termed it “vote theft”. But do mass deletions imply a benefit to the BJP-led alliance? 

See the math.

Of Bihar’s 243 assembly seats, 64 saw the highest deletions – more than 30,000 each. But it is the NDA that holds most of these seats: a total of 41.

These include 17 won by the BJP, 23 by the JD(U), and one by the HAM(S). This is nearly double the number of such seats won by the INDIA bloc. 

This is just a glimpse into a larger pattern. Of Bihar’s 243 seats, the gap between NDA and INDIA bloc decreases as the deletions decrease. For example, in seats where deletions range from 10,000 to 30,000, the NDA holds 86 seats, nearly the same as the 87 won by the INDIA bloc.

And the gap increases as the deletions increase, as seen in the 64 seats with over 30,000 deletions. These include four which have seen more than 50,000 names struck off the rolls – all of them are NDA bastions.

Additionally, there are 190 constituencies in Bihar where deletions exceed 2020 victory margins. Even of these 190, the NDA holds the majority – 105 seats. 

Newslaundry crunched the numbers from 90,712 polling booths into excel sheets. While this analysis shows where voter deletions occurred geographically, it can not determine the political affiliations of the deleted voters. This is also not the final scale of deletions as the EC will continue to process claims and objections until the nomination deadline.

The trends

In just one month of the special intensive revision exercise, Bihar’s electorate saw a dramatic drop, from 7.89 crore voters in June to 7.24 crore in July, marking the steepest fall in the state in the shortest span of time. By contrast, only 12 lakh voters were deleted during the 2024 summary revision and 16 lakh in the 2023 summary revision. 

The exercise triggered a political storm, with the INDIA bloc terming it a tool to disenfranchise opposition voters. During Congress-RJD’s vote adhikar yatra ahead of the assembly elections in Bihar, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had said the SIR is an “institutionalised way” of vote theft. “Lakhs of voters’ names were deleted; the opposition is complaining, but the BJP has not complained even once because there is a partnership between the ECI, the election commissioner and the BJP”. 

The data is not so black and white.

Assembly seats in Bihar stacked as per range of deletions. Hover over the bars to see which parties hold how many seats in a certain range of deletion.

The NDA includes the BJP, JD(U), HAMS, VIP, and LJP while the INDIA bloc constitutes the RJD, Congress, CPI(ML)L, CPI and CPI(M). This is different from the 2020 pre- and post-poll alliance as it had changed with Nitish Kumar’s move towards the NDA fold. The INDIA bloc currently holds 110 seats, the NDA has 125 seats, and others eight. 

Among 243 seats in Bihar, including the 190 where deletions are higher than the 2020 margins, there are 53 other constituencies that saw deletions hover below the victory margins. In these 53 seats, the average winning margin stood at 35,405 votes against an average 24,241 votes deleted. The NDA has 22 seats while the INDIA bloc has 28.

The BJP and RJD are neck and neck in these 53 seats. 

The parties that won the 53 other constituencies that saw deletions hover below the victory margins.

Let’s now look at the 190 seats where deletions are more than the 2020 victory margins. 

The NDA has 105 seats whereas the INDIA bloc has 82 – rest are held by parties or candidates not affiliated to these blocs.

There are 190 seats in Bihar where deletions exceed the 2020 victory margins. A look at which parties and alliances won how many of these.

Of these 190, the BJP won 59 constituencies, the RJD 58, JD(U) 37, Congress 16, VSIP (VIP) and CPM(ML)L won four each, the HAM(S) three, Independent candidates two, the AIMIM two, and one each was secured by the LJP, CPI, CPML and CPM.

A map showing all the constituencies. Hover over each of them to see how many names were struck off in the first phase of the SIR.

Asked for comment, the Congress said that the voters excluded in the SIR were opposition supporters. “In BJP strongholds too, the votes that were cut were mostly of those who don’t support the BJP. We are still examining this at a micro level – because the BJP will surely come up with some new method of vote theft,” said party spokesperson Rajesh Rathod.

BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya had earlier remarked that the SIR is an exercise to weed out illegal immigrants. Bihar BJP media head Danish Iqbal said the “job of the opposition is to turn infiltrators into voters”. Praising the EC, he said, “This shows the transparency of the Election Commission.” 

Priyanka Bharti of the RJD said vote theft “doesn’t always mean direct stealing”. “It happens when someone's name is removed or someone else's name is added. That’s a process. For instance, BJP Gujarat’s general secretary Bhikhu Bhai Dalsania has his name added – in Gujarati – in the Bihar voter list. This means names are being added from outside while Biharis’ names are being deleted.”

The vulnerable seats

Seventy-seven of these 190 seats – where deletions were more than the victory margins – were tight races. The margin was less than 5 percent of the votes polled. On average, 25,000 votes were deleted from these 77 constituencies, compared to an average winning margin of just 3,886 votes. 

In this category of vulnerable seats, the NDA holds 38 constituencies while the INDIA bloc has 38. One is held by an Independent.

There are 77 vulnerable seats which saw tight races in 2020 and where deletions are now higher than the 2020 victory margins.

One such vulnerable seat is Bhagalpur, held by Congress’s legislature party leader Ajit Sharma – a three-time MLA and father of Bollywood actor Neha Sharma. In the last election, he won by just 1,113 votes, while 30,132 votes were deleted from his constituency during the first phase of the SIR. 

Another such seat is Siwan, won by RJD senior leader and former education minister Awadh Bihari Chaudhary. He had won by 1,973 votes whereas 23,389 electors were struck off the rolls from his assembly. 

But if you look at the seats with the 10 thinnest margins, the NDA has more seats than the opposition.

The remaining 113 constituencies had seemingly safe margins, won by over 5 percent of the vote in the 2020 election. These were marked by an average 29,272 deletions against an average 17,490 victory margin.

In this category, the NDA has 66 seats while the INDIA bloc has 44.

The BJP holds the highest share at 41. This is followed by the RJD with 32, the JD(U) with 22 and Congress with six seats. 

Asked about our findings, JD(U)’s chief spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said, “They (the opposition) cannot debate on development. That is why they have raised this issue. On 90,000 booths you couldn’t even appoint booth-level agents – this is your organisational failure. You are not ready to accept that."