In Patna district’s Koriyawagarh village, there are about 150 households comprising people from the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs). The villagers mostly include small farmers, daily wagers and those who have migrated for work to states like Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka.
At least 30 per cent of these household are said to be dependant on “migrant remittances”. The village falls under the Masaurhi Assembly constituency, held currently by the RJD’s Rekha Paswan.
Sudhir Kumar, 31, who works in a Surat cloth factory, recently returned to Koriyawagarh following frantic calls from his family, which asked him to come home to fill up the enumeration forms ahead of the July 25 deadline for the Election Commission (EC)’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls of poll-bound Bihar.
“I want to remain an elector in Bihar at all costs as I live 6-8 months in Surat. If I continue to be a voter here, I will retain my Bihar identity and will remain entitled to the benefits of various welfare schemes of the Bihar government,” says Sudhir, who reached out to his booth level officer (BLO) to fill up his form.
“I also submitted my residential (domicile) certificate to ensure that I do not have to submit the documents being sought by the EC at a later stage,” he says, underlining that “I am not comfortable with online form submission”.
In its June 24 order, the EC has said that all 7.8 crore registered electors of Bihar would be required to submit enumeration forms by July 25 to make it to the draft roll to be published on August 1. Those voters who were not registered in the 2003 state rolls will also have to submit one of the 11 documents to determine their citizenship.
Three other members of Sudhir’s family have also submitted their enumeration forms. They have just heard the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government’s decision to provide 125 unit free electricity to all households in the state. “If one does not have a voter identity card, who knows one may be deprived of such benefits,”says Sudhir.
He says he was among several underprivileged Bihari migrants, who have returned home to be part of the SIR exercise.
Suraj Kumar, 21, who is also from Koriyawagarh village and works in a Surat cloth factory, says: “There was no need to prepare a fresh voters’ list. In fact, new electors should have been added. Anyways, I came back to village to ensure that all three members of my family continue to be voters. We have been hearing instances of people’s names getting dropped (being put in the permanently shifted category). When BLOs have not been going house to house, how do they know whether people have shifted permanently or just temporarily for work. I am happy that I could come back to join the SIR process. But I am concerned about many other Bihari migrants, who could not return homes to fill up their forms.”
Both Sudhir and Suraj belong to the OBC groups.
Munna Saw, who is from the EBC, runs a confectionary shop in Masaurhi’s Pitwans. “My brother’s name would be dropped from voters’ list as he has not submitted his form. He is a worker in Delhi,” he says.
Asked if the booth level agents (BLAs) of any political party had approached locals so far to create awareness about the SIR, Munna says: “No one has come here so far, even though we have filled up our forms”.
Pitwans has several tales of migrant woes, with Munna claiming that “In our booth, 15 to 20 per cent names may be dropped as many migrants who left behind their families to work in other states could not return”. He also says, “It could make an impact in the upcoming Assembly elections. But the NDA government appears to be reaching out to its constituency by distributing doles,” adding that his wife Ritu Devi has been talking about 125 unit free power and the Nitish government’s earlier move to raise the social security pension from Rs 400 to Rs 1,100 per month.
RJD leader and Masaurhi MLA Rekha Paswan told The Indian Express: “I have been touring the constituency with my workers to urge the people to fill up the SIR forms. But several local residents, who are working outside the state, have not been able to do so. The awareness level is still low in rural areas. Our BLAs have been working hard, but it has been a tough task.”
The RJD’s Dhanarua block president Sanjay Kumar says: “The process of filling enumeration forms in our area is almost done. Many poor people, who have shifted temporarily for work, may not remain voters, which is a matter of concern. Majdoor kahan se online bharega (how would a labourer fill up online forms?).”
The situation seems to be the same in the adjoining Bikram Assembly seat in Patna district, represented by the BJP’s Siddharth Saurav (he had won it in the 2020 polls as a Congress nominee).
In Bikram too, the migration of many residents for livelihood cuts across various communities including the upper castes, EBCs and SCs.
A marginal farmer from Bikram’s Sona village, Kaushlendra, an OBC, says: “My village, like most villages, has 15-20 per cent people working outside Bihar. While I see some people among EBCs and Dalits getting forms of their migrant family members signed even through WhatsApp, I do not see the same degree of alarm among upper caste voters… This revision of voters’ list is an unnecessary exercise, especially so close to Assembly polls (slated for October-November this year).”
The EC said Monday that it has received so far about 7.16 crore forms (90.67% of Bihar’s electors) and that over 43.92 lakh electors have not been found at their addresses so far, which include “reported” deceased, permanently shifted, enrolled at multiple places and “not traceable”.
As per the 2011 Census data, there were altogether 74.54 lakh migrants from Bihar across the country, accounting for 7.2% of the state’s then 10.41 crore population.