A march in every block: Bihar takes the voter-roll fight to the CEC's door

PATNA: The argument over who gets to vote in India moved from the national capital to Bihar's blocks on Tuesday. Leaders of the INDIA bloc took out Aakrosh March processions across the state, alleging that the Election Commission has acted as a puppet of the ruling BJP during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who announced the programme, said marches would be held at block level on October 7, followed by sit-in protests at district headquarters on October 8 and a march by senior leaders, MLAs and MLCs towards the Governor's House in Patna to submit a memorandum. The bloc also hopes to seek an appointment with President Droupadi Murmu after October 15. The Election Commission and the BJP have rejected opposition allegations of politically motivated manipulation, saying revision is meant to remove duplicate and ineligible entries and enrol those who are eligible.

The Bihar protest extends a campaign that has already seen opposition MPs march from Parliament towards the Commission's headquarters in Delhi, sit on the road after being stopped, and parallel protests led by opposition leaders in other states. Yadav alleged that genuine voters were deleted during the revision in Bihar and West Bengal, that assembly elections held after such deletions were fraudulent, and that a one-year retention period for voter records had been cut to 45 days. Those are allegations, not court findings, but they go to the most basic safeguard in the system: whether a citizen's name is still on the list when polling day arrives.

Bihar matters in this dispute for a reason the opposition was keen to stress. The state is where the INDIA alliance was formed and where, in Yadav's words, the revision process was kickstarted. Taking the march to every block is therefore both a protest tactic and an organisational test. A dispute conducted through press conferences in Delhi becomes, at block level, a question asked at the ration shop and the panchayat office: is your name on the roll, and who removed it if it is not?

The Commission's answer has been procedural: revision improves accuracy. The opposition's answer is now political and statewide. Between the two sits the voter who will discover the outcome only when the final roll is published. A democracy can survive a bitter argument about its referee. It cannot easily survive citizens losing faith that their names will be there when they queue.