The Bharatiya Janata Party opened a 15-day statewide campaign in Bihar on Thursday to defend the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls, as opposition parties staged fresh protests in Jahanabad, Bhagalpur, and other districts demanding the exercise be scrapped and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign.
BJP state president Sanjay Saraogi said the “Loktantra Bachao, Bheedtantra Hatao” tour would run through 5 November with rallies, youth dialogues, and social-media outreach themed around electoral integrity. Opposition groups, including the CPI(M)-led fronts in several towns, say the commission is deleting crores of names and undermining voting rights ahead of assembly elections.
Competing narratives
BJP media in-charge Danish Eqbal told Hindustan Times that opponents have failed to produce a single wrongly deleted name, arguing removals reflect deaths, duplicate registrations, or voters who moved. Protesters in Makhdumpur and Bhagalpur counter that the revision process is opaque and disproportionately affects poorer voters who lack documentary trails.
Friday’s demonstrations tied into a nationwide protest day called by left-affiliated farmers’ unions, with Bhagalpur police allowing a Station Chowk gathering that demanded both SIR’s cancellation and action against the chief election commissioner.
Stakes for the state poll
Bihar’s political calendar makes voter-list accuracy a high-voltage issue: the INDIA bloc has already named Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial face, while the BJP leans on its alliance with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United). Any large-scale disenfranchisement claim could sway neutral voters in closely fought seats.
Election Commission officials have defended SIR as a statutory clean-up, but have not publicly released district-wise deletion appeals data at the granularity activists want.
What comes next
As the BJP’s roadshow moves beyond Patna, opposition parties plan parallel “save democracy” marches, raising law-and-order tests for district magistrates. The commission’s response to appeals—and whether deleted voters are reinstated before nomination deadlines—will likely matter more than slogans on either side.
Administrative appeals
District election officers have set help desks for voters to file claims if their names disappeared, but activists argue the window is too short for migrant workers to gather documents. The BJP’s campaign literature stresses online tracking of appeals, while opposition parties demand published ward-wise deletion lists.
Social-media teams on both sides are circulating videos of rallies; fact-checkers urge viewers to verify whether clips show current protests or archived footage from other states.
Law and order
Police in Patna and Bhagalpur said marches remained peaceful Friday, though officials warned that blocking highways could invite preventive police action if crowds ignore permitted routes.