Nearly 11,000 'not traceable' voters in Bihar, SIR finds; EC officials suspect bogus entries

As the Election Commission (EC) nears completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls, a troubling detail has surfaced. Over 11,000 voters marked as “not traceable,” according to a report by The Times of India.

These electors, flagged during the latest round of verification, could potentially be illegal immigrants who obtained voter IDs from Bihar despite not residing in the state, EC officials told TOI. They suspect that some entries might have been used to create space for bogus voting.

An EC functionary explained to TOI, “Not traceable electors were not just not found at their recorded addresses by the booth level officers (BLOs) but never known to have lived there even by immediate neighbours. In some cases, no house or dwelling was found at these addresses.”

“It is possible that they are illegal immigrants — possibly Bangladeshis or Rohingyas — who may be living in neighbouring states but somehow managed to get themselves electoral photo identity cards from Bihar, possibly due to lack of requisite checks during summary revisions or even corrupt means,” the official added.

As of now, around 41.6 lakh voters in Bihar, or 5.3% of the total electorate, have been marked as missing from their registered addresses despite three rounds of verification. This includes approximately:

• 14.3 lakh (1.8%) listed as probably deceased
  
  
• 19.7 lakh (2.5%) possibly permanently shifted
  
  
• 7.5 lakh (0.9%) suspected to be enrolled in multiple locations
  
  
• 11,000 marked “not traceable”
  
  

An official told TOI, “The deceased voters were never removed from the list, which creates a leeway for bogus votes. Over 41 lakh missing electors, when split across constituencies, may be larger than the victory margin in some.”

So far, 96% of Bihar’s 7.9 crore electors have turned in their enrolment forms, and 88.2% of those have already been digitised, TOI reported.

(With inputs from TOI)