Bihar Electoral Rolls Crisis: Over 21 Lakh Forms Pending as ECI Races Against Deadline
As Bihar gets ready for its upcoming assembly elections, an astounding 21.36 lakh voter enumeration forms remain unprocessed, raising questions about the veracity of the state’s electoral records. As part of its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, the Election Commission of India (ECI) released this significant update on July 22, 2025. It emphasized the main challenges of keeping an accurate and clean voter list. As the July 25 deadline draws near, what is at stake for Bihar’s democratic process, and can the ECI overcome this challenge?
The ECI’s SIR was started on June 24, 2025, with the goal of updating Bihar’s electoral rolls to remove duplicate, shifted, and deceased entries and include all eligible voters. Of the 7.89 crore registered voters, 7.16 crore have had their forms collected; this leaves 21.36 lakh voters unaccounted for. Surprisingly, 52.30 lakh voters could not be found at their registered addresses; of these, 11.484 could not be found, 7.50 lakh were enrolled in multiple locations, 26.01 lakh were believed to have moved, and 18.66 lakh were most likely dead. This massive exercise, the first through revision since 2003, has created both urgency and controversy.
About 1.5 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs), four lakh volunteers, and one lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) from 12 major political parties have been mobilized by the ECI to collect forms and locate missing voters. Despite these attempts, the process has been criticized. The initial voter roll update, accomplished by January 2025, was reportedly deemed satisfactory but abruptly denied by the ECI, leading to allegations of chaos and the potential voter disenfranchisement. Due to the exclusion of Aadhaar and ration cards as valid forms of identification, opposition parties such as the INDIA bloc have shown concern that millions of people may be left out.
The United States sparked a heated discussion about perceived biases within the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and international cooperation when it announced on July 22, 2025, that it was leaving the organization. According to CNN Politics and The Guardian, the United States has pulled out of UNESCO for the third time since 1945, citing “anti-Israel bias” and “divisive social and cultural causes.” What is the reason for this abrupt departure, and how will it affect international education and cultural preservation, just two years after they reunited under President Biden in 2023?
