By Ayush Tiwari
On July 16, the chief electoral officer of Bihar drew up a list of nearly 1.49 crore voters who had not yet submitted enumeration forms for the special intensive revision of the electoral roll.
This list, which showed the number of voters yet to fill the forms in each constituency, was shared with political parties in Bihar on July 20. Party workers told Scroll they used it to track down some of these voters to help them submit their forms before July 25 – those who failed to meet this deadline will not make it to the draft voter list to be put out on August 1.
On July 27, a day after the deadline for submitting the forms had lapsed, the Election Commission of India announced that 65 lakh voters in Bihar – 8.3% of the electorate – had not submitted their enumeration forms.
The poll body did not release the details of these electors or their constituency-wise break-up.
But the July 16 data could be indicative of broader trends of inclusion and exclusion in the first draft voter list that will be put out on August 1.
A Scroll analysis of this list shows that six of the 10 Bihar districts with the biggest share of Muslim population also have the highest number of pending enumeration forms.
This includes all four districts in the Seemanchal region – Araria, Kishanganj, Purnia and Katihar – as well as Sitamarhi and East Champaran districts.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.