ECI debunks claims of Bihar SIR exercise ‘fraud’, peddled by Soros-funded Reporters’ Collective

A fresh controversy erupted over Bihar’s draft electoral rolls after a report by the reporters’ collective claimed to have found 67,826 “dubious duplicate voters” across just 15 constituencies. According to the report, these alleged duplicates were registered with identical credentials, raising concerns about the purity of the State’s electoral list.

The collective’s findings, based on data mining, suggested large-scale duplication in the draft rolls published as part of the ongoing Special Summary Revision (SIR) 2025. However, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Bihar fact-checked the allegations on Sunday, 31st August, terming them misleading and premature.

FactCheck

Rebuttal on Allegations of Duplicate Voters in Bihar’s Draft Rolls (SIR 2025) on the report of the reporters collective

1. The SIR is an ongoing statutory process carried out under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules,… https://t.co/0FxixtmCJM

— Chief Electoral Officer, Bihar (@CEOBihar) August 31, 2025

In a detailed statement on X, the CEO said the report had ignored the statutory process through which draft rolls are corrected and finalised.

Draft rolls meant for public scrutiny, not final lists

Responding to the report, the CEO clarified that the Special Summary Revision (SIR) is still underway and that the published rolls are only a draft.

“The current draft rolls published under the SIR are not final. They are explicitly intended for public scrutiny, inviting claims and objections from electors, political parties, and all other stakeholders,” the CEO stated.

The statement further stated that any duplication at this stage cannot be taken as a “final error” or “illegal inclusion” because the law itself provides for correction during the claims and objections period.

Duplicate claims based on demographic similarities

The report’s claim of 67,826 duplicate voters was strongly contested by the CEO. The rebuttal explained that the figure was based on “subjective matching” of parameters like names, relatives’ names and age, which are not conclusive evidence of duplication.

“In Bihar, especially rural constituencies, it is common for multiple individuals to share identical names, parental names, and even similar ages,” he said. “The Supreme Court has recognised such demographic similarities as insufficient proof of duplication without a field inquiry.”

The report emphasised that Demographically Similar Entries (DSEs) are continuously identified and removed during the verification process. Any voter, political party, or citizen has the right to file objections with the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO).

Deduplication mechanism through ERONET 2.0

To counter the impression that duplicate entries go unchecked, the CEO highlighted the Election Commission of India’s deduplication mechanism.

The ECI uses its ERONET 2.0 software for detecting Demographically Similar Entries (DSEs), which flags probable duplicates.

These flagged cases are not automatically deleted but are subjected to ground verification by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and EROs. This layered process ensures genuine electors are not disenfranchised by an automated algorithm.

In the case of Valmikinagar, it must be stated that a detailed report regarding the 5,000 persons alleged to be duplicates should be provided. Only then can any investigation be considered relevant. Merely giving out a number on an imaginary basis does not establish any fact as correct.”

Examples of duplicate voters under scrutiny

The report had also cited cases like “Anjali Kumari” of Triveniganj and “Ankit Kumar” of Laukaha to argue duplication. The CEO responded that these were isolated anecdotes which could have arisen from clerical errors, migration-related multiple applications, or misreporting at the household level.

The tweet confirmed that corrections were already underway: “Form 8 has been filled out for both cases of Anjali Kumari and Ankit Kumar.”

Allegations of ‘Locked’ data rejected

Another charge made by the reporters’ collective was that the electoral data had been deliberately “locked” to prevent machine-scale analysis.

Rejecting this, the CEO clarified: “Under Rule 22 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, electoral rolls are made available in prescribed formats to ensure integrity and prevent misuse. Making rolls non-scrapable is a data protection safeguard, not an attempt to conceal duplication.”

The CEO also pointed to the Supreme Court’s directions in Kamalnath vs Election Commission of India (2018), which had already upheld such safeguards.

Statistical extrapolation ‘Speculative and Untenable’

The CEO took strong exception to the collective’s suggestion that the alleged duplication in 15 constituencies could be extrapolated to the entire state.

“The extrapolation that lakhs of duplicates could exist statewide is speculative and legally untenable,” he said, stressing that courts have repeatedly ruled that such allegations must be backed by verified evidence, not statistical projections.

The legal framework provides safeguards

The CEO also underlined that the law already has strong safeguards to address duplication.

“Section 22 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, empowers EROs to delete names of duplicates if conclusive proof emerges. Hence, there exists a statutory mechanism to continuously address duplication,” he said.

Any elector or booth-level party agent can file specific objections under Rule 13 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 if they suspect duplication, as further written in the tweet. 

Allegations premature, says Bihar CEO

Concluding the rebuttal, the CEO said the presence of some provisional duplicate entries in the draft roll does not invalidate the revision exercise.

“The report’s conclusions that the SIR facilitates fraud or that duplicates will decisively impact elections are speculative, premature, and contrary to the legal framework governing electoral roll management.”

The Reporters’s Collective and its links to American Deep State

It is important to look at the organisations behind Reporters’ Collective. A look at the list of donors of its parent organisation shows that it is backed by usual suspects behind the ongoing anti-India campaign.

Reporters’ Collective is run by the National Foundation for India, an FCRA-registered NGO.

A perusal of its donor list shows that the National Foundation for India is funded by the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation of George Soros, the Omidyar Network, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others.

All these organisations are part of the American Deep State network and have funded numerous anti-India campaigns and initiatives. The Reporters’ Collective is a part of the anti-India front of the American Deep State.

The fake news published by it in December last year is in line with the textbook approach adopted by George Soros and his Open Society Foundations to influence civil society and ‘distort’ public perspectives across different nations.